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55th Congress, ) 

SENATE. 

( Document 

2d Session. ) 


( No. 340. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


July 8,1898.—Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary and 

printed. 


Mr. Allen presented the following 


ordered to be 

f 2-/ 

2-43 


PAPER PREPARED BY ELTWEED POMEROY, OP NEWARK, N. J., ON 
THE SUBJECT OF DIRECT LEGISLATION, AND OTHER PAPERS 
FAVORING LEGISLATION BY THE REFERENDUM. 


Direct legislation is law-enacting by the electors as distinguished 
from law-enacting by representatives or some other body or by a 
single ruler, as a king, emperor, or czar. In small communities it is 
accomplished by the electors meeting together and voting on every 
law or ordinance by which they are to be governed. This is done in 
the New England town meetings, of which Jefferson said over a cen¬ 
tury ago that they were “the wisest invention ever devised by the 
wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and its per¬ 
petuation.” (Yol. VII of H. A. Washington edition of works, p. 9.) 

And Charles Sumner said: 

The towns of Massachusetts, like the municipalities of Switzerland, have been 
the schools and nurseries of freedom—in these small bodies men were early dis¬ 
ciplined in those primal duties of citizenship which, on a grander scale, are made 
the foundation of our whole political system. * * * The true glory of the 
towns then was that they were organized on the principle of self-government 
when that principle was not generally recognized—that each town by itself was 
a little republic, where the whole body of freemen were voters, with powers of 
local legislation, taxation, and administration. (Vol. Ill, p. 246, of Lee & Shepard, 
1874, edition of works.) 

And Prof. James Bryce said: 

The town meeting has been the most perfect school of self-government in any 
modem country. (The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 246.) 

Many other authorities could be cited as to the satisfactory work¬ 
ing of direct legislation in small communities, but these three are 
typical, being from a Southerner, a man reared amongst them, and a 
foreigner, and being over a century apart. Direct legislation is so 
firmly rooted in country New England that no one now thinks of 
opposing it, and it has and is spreading to other States. 1 

1 See An English View of the Referendum, and a second English View of the 
Referendum, No. 27; Direct Legislation in Iowa, No. 29; Direct Legislation in 
the South, No. 80; The Problem of the Cities, No. 31; Direct Legislation in New 
England; No. 32; A Duluth and a Swiss Municipal Referendum, ,T o. 33; Genera! 
Outline of Direct Legislation in Switzerland, No. 34; Direct Legislation in 
Switzerland, No. 42; Genuine Democracy in Switzerland, No. 47; Direct Legisla¬ 
tion in France. 







2 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


cJ ' ^ z> ~ 

A>* 


As this report concerns national matters, nothing further will be 
said about this form of direct legislation. 

In communities too widespread or with a population too numerous 
for the voters to meet together and decide on the laws by which they 
are to be governed, direct legislation is accomplished by the use of 
imperative petitions through what is known as the initiative and refer¬ 
endum. The right of petition for the redress of grievances is an old, 
highly valued, and now largely useless Anglo-Saxon right. It is stated 
in the Magna Charta and every other bill or declaration of rights since. 
Ordinary petitions are now so largely disregarded that this right has 
become of little use. Direct legislation makes this ancient right of 
petition effective and valuable. 

By the initiative, a reasonable minority of the voters by signing a 
petition for a law, can force the council, legislature, congress, or par¬ 
liament to consider and vote on the initiated law, and if it does not 
pass then it goes to a referendum, or vote of the people, at the next 
election. At present members of the legislature are the only ones 
who have the power of initiation, and often that is limited by the 
smothering power of committees. The executive has large powers of 
suggestion in messages and can effectively influence public opinion, 
but he can not directly initiate laws. 

There are two forms of the initiative. One where the full text of 
the law is petitioned for and voted and if passed by the legislature as 
petitioned, it is not submitted to the people unless a referendum peti¬ 
tion is signed and filed for such reference. And the other is where it 
is petitioned that a law be enacted for a certain purpose. This is in 
th§ nature of a resolution and it goes to a poll of the people and if a 
majority favors it, it is then the duty of the legislature to draft and 
pass a law for that purpose, and usually the legislature of its own 
volition submits that law to a poll of the people; and at times the peo¬ 
ple reject the method while favoring the purpose. Both forms are 
used in Switzerland, but the latter is the more frequent. In the agita¬ 
tion in this country the first is the one usually understood. 

The referendum means the vote of the people on a measure, and 
there are three or four forms of getting that vote. 

First. The compulsory referendum, which is that all laws or all laws 
of a certain class shall be submitted to the people. We have this 
compulsory referendum on constitutional amendments in every State 
in the Union save Delaware. 1 In Missouri, California, Oregon, and 
Washington there is a compulsory referendum on city charters. In 
other States on incurring a debt, moving the capitol, and a variety of 
questions. 2 The Cantons of Berne and Zurich in Switzerland have 
had the compulsory referendum on all laws for nearly thirty years, 
and it works admirably. But the compulsory referendum is not what 
is understood when the word ‘ ‘ referendum ” alone is used. It is rarely 
if ever advocated in this country for all legislation and is not advo¬ 
cated in this report. 

Second. The optional referendum is what is generally understood 
when the word “referendum” alone is used. It is that a vote of the 
people is had on any law for which a reasonable minority sign a peti¬ 
tion for its reference. This right of course draws along with it the 
provision that no laws shall go into effect till the opponents of a law 

1 See Appendixes No. 26, The Referendum in Use, and No. 28, A Review of 
Michigan Referendums. 

*See Appendix No. 27, Direct Legislation in Iowa. 

*’\ ‘ NO*' 




DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


3 


have had time to get signatures to the petitions, such as thirty days 
for a city, sixty or ninety days for a state, and four or six months for 
a nation. There is usually made an exception to this of laws which 
are immediate^ necessary for the preservation of the public peace, 
health, or safety. These are classed as urgent laws and can go into 
effect at once though very frequently it requires more than a majority 
vote to pass them. Then should the referendum be demanded on 
these laws, they would be repealed from the date of the vote provided 
a majority of the people voted against them. On other measures if 
the requisite number sign a petition the law is held from operation 
till a majority vote in favor of it. If a majority vote against it at the 
next election, it is defeated. 1 The optional referendum is what is 
advocated here and is what is usually meant by the word “refer¬ 
endum ” when used alone. 

Third. The executive referendum is that the executive, president in 
the nation, governor in a State, mayor in a city, has the power to refer 
a matter passed by the law-making body to the people. This was 
strongly advocated for and actually came near insertion into the con¬ 
stitution of Belgium when it was revised some ten or fifteen years ago. 
It is already inserted in the just-drawn San Francisco city charter. It 
is in use in some local matters. 2 It has been in use in a crude form in 
Great Britain and many of her colonies w~hen the executive dissolves 
parliament and calls a new election. 3 

Fourth. The legislative referendum is that a number of a legisla¬ 
ture less than a majority can refer a law to a vote of the people. The 
percentage necessary is usually 20 or 25 per cent of one house. It is 
a form not much advocated. 4 

Fifth. The disagreement referendum is a form of the legislative 
referendum. It is that when there is a disagreement between the two 
houses of the legislature the bill can be referred to the people by one 
house or by either. Sometimes it requires twice passing in the lower 
house. This form is quite extensively advocated in Australia, and is 
what is often understood by the word “referendum” in England. 5 

A curious variation of this has arisen in the discussion of the appli¬ 
cation of the referendum to the new federal constitution for Australia, 
now forming. It is called the dual referendum, and means that any 
law referred to the w hole people must be passed both by a majority of 
those voting on it and by majorities in a majority of the States. This, 
it is thought, would preserve State rights; but it is a useless precau¬ 
tion, as the experience of Switzerland for over a quarter of a century 
shows that a case has never occurred wdiere a majority of the States 
were on the one side and a majority of the people on the other. 
Usually the majority is very decisive in both methods of counting. 

Sixth. The judicial referendum is, that whenever a law or part of a 
law is declared unconstitutional by a supreme court, then the execu¬ 
tive must submit that law to a vote of the people at the next election, and 
if a majority—or sometimes a three-fifths or two-thirds majority—vote 
in favor of it, it becomes a law, anything in the constitution to the 
contrary, though it does not repeal that part of the constitution with 


1 See the various proposed laws in Appendixes Nos. 54 through 66. 

2 See Appendix No. 27, Direct Legislation in Iowa. 

3 See Appendix No. 46, The Referendum in England. 

4 See Appendix No. 54, Suggested Amendments to United States Constitution. 

5 See Appendix No. 48, The Referendum in England; No. 5, Speech of Hon. G. H. 
Reid: No. 6. speech of Hon. E. L. Batcheler; Nos. 49, 50, and 51, referring to 
Australia and New Zealand and the Australasian bills, Nos. 62 through 66. 



4 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


which it conflicts, save for the special instance mentioned in the law. 
This is quite generally advocated among a certain class in this country, 
as being a control over the courts. 1 

Certain other bodies are sometimes invested with the power of the 
referendum in certain cases, such as the Grand Army of the Republic 
in certain matters in Iowa. But the above are the main forms of the 
referendum. 

What are the arguments for the adoption of direct legislation in 
national matters? 

First. It is in direct harmony with the spirit of our institutions, 
with the teachings of the fathers of our country, and with the lines of 
its development. It would have been nearly impossible to have a 
national referendum a century ago, but the progress of invention has 
not only made it possible but practical, and soon to be absolutely 
necessary. Then it took a week to go from New York to Washing¬ 
ton; now, five hours. Then the representative system was sufficient; 
now we need to have it supplemented by something finer, more effi¬ 
cient, more in touch with the people. 

This great movement for a closer bond between the people and their 
government is shown by the fact that a century ago nearly all the 
governors of States were chosen by the legislatures; now they are 
chosen by the people. The early State constitutions were mostly bills 
of rights; now they are codes of laws, embracing many things for¬ 
merly left to the legislature. The early constitution of New Hamp¬ 
shire had 600 words; the last one of Missouri had 42,000. These are 
enacted by the people, and they are a crude and awkward form of 
direct legislation. Look also at the complete change in the working 
of the electoral college from the intent of our Constitution makers to 
a direct control by the people, and in our early history the members 
of the electoral college were generally elected by the legislatures; 
now by the people. Also measures are entering more and more into 
our quadrennial Presidential contests. 2 

Second. It is necessary. So much work has been forced on our 
legislative bodies that they are breaking down. So much irresponsi¬ 
ble power has centered in their hands because of the growing inter¬ 
dependence of our economic life that the people are repeating and 
believing what only a little while ago Senator Smith, of New Jersey, 
said on the floor of the Senate: “The great majority of the people are 
disgusted with Congress;” and repeated by Senator Vilas, of Wiscon¬ 
sin, when he said: “Partisanship and imbecility have again stricken 
Congress with paralysis.” 3 The same is true of all our legislatures. 4 

It would make all legislative halls council chambers for the people 
and their members councillors to the people. It would lift them above 
the corruption, because there would then be no use in it. It would 


1 See Appendixes Nos. 54 through 59 for laws, etc., embodying the judicial refer¬ 
endum. 

2 See Appendix No. 12, A Colossal but Crude and Awkward Referendum. For 
the legal aspects of direct legislation, see Appendix No. 1, with that title. For the 
advocacy of its principles by the founders of our country, see Appendix No. 8, The 
New Time articles, and particularly the one for April, 1898. No. 21, the Doorway of 
Reforms; No. 24, Foreshadowings of Direct Legislation, and No. 44, Some Opin¬ 
ions on Direct Legislation. 

Quoted in Appendix No. 21, The Doorway of Reforms. 

4 See Appendix No. 17, The Breakdown of Legislatures: No. 18, Impressions of 
Legislative Work from the Inside; No. 19, Parliament is Over; No. 20, A Contrast; 
No. 8, The New Time articles, particularly the Social Argument for Direct Legis¬ 
lation and From a Legislator's Standpoint; and No. 2, Suggestions on Government. 
Also see the various appendixes on the history of the movement, as they often 
illustrate how necessary it is. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 5 

restore the fast-waning reverence for lawmaking, and that reverence 
is at the foundation of all civilized order. 

Third. It is practicable now and for national affairs. The man who 
has not studied the subject is apt to hesitate at this statement, but 
let him consider that direct legislation is not a radical thing, but truly 
conservative, conserving what is good in the past and only allowing 
progress as fast as the people are ready for progress, but allowing it 
when they are ready for progress. 1 It is the third, plank in the Eng¬ 
lish Conservative Party’s platform, and advocated by such men as 
Lords Salisbury and Roseberry, Arthur J. Balfour, Professors Leecky 
and Dicey and Bryce. 2 

It does not mean more laws, but fewer, shorter, simpler, and more 
understandable ones. During the last twenty years the cantons of 
Berne and Zurich, in Switzerland, where they have the obligatory 
referendum, have passed an average of four to five laws a year. Con¬ 
trast that with the passing of 647 laws in the New York legislature of 
1897. In a recent Swiss national legislative session 65 measures were 
introduced and 24 of these passed. In the last Congress 24,000 meas¬ 
ures were introduced. 3 

It does not mean more partisanship, more elections, more turmoil 
and trouble, but less. It means a smoothness in the working of our 
legislative machinery now undreamed of. 4 

Hence it means less expense, and not more. A few simple, inex¬ 
pensive additions to our present election machinery. 5 There are only 
three classes of laws which would be submitted: Those in which it was 
thought there was some corrupt motive or end, and these, which are 
a large class now in popular opinion, would soon be almost completely 
wiped out; then great measures, on which it was thought the people 
were nearly evenly divided, and these are few and ought to go to the 
people; and, lastly, measures which were brought up by some set of 
the people for educational purposes, and these would be very valuable 
educationally. 6 . 

Where used, it is already settling in a slow and thorough and suc¬ 
cessful manner the same great questions which are troubling our 
political and economic life, such as the money question, the railway 
question, monopolies, etc. 7 For these reasons it is practical here and 
now. 

Fourth. Its indirect effects are as valuable if not more so than its 
direct effects. It secures better legislators, better laws, and a wider 
and finer education among the people. 8 


1 See Appendix No. 45, by a former President of the Swiss Republic, and No. 46, 
A Well-Seasoned Swiss Opinion. 

2 See Appendix No. 3, An English View of the Referendum; No. 4, A Second 
English View; No. 5, Speech of Hon. G. H. Reid; No. 48, The Referendum in 
England. 

8 See Appendix No. 7, Direct Legislation versus Representative Government; 
No. 8, The New Time articles, particularly the ending of article for November, 
1897; No. 40, How It Works, and No. 41, Genuine Democracy in Switzerland. 

4 See Appendixes Nos. 24 through 53, on history of direct legislation, but in 
particular No. 20, A Contrast. 

5 See Appendix No. 55, United States Senate referendum bill now pending, and 
Nos. 54 through 66 of various laws. 

6 For the fewness and inexpensiveness of Swiss national votings see Appendixes 
Nos. 33 through 46, and in particular No. 33, National Votings in Switzerland, 
and No. 36, Swiss Federal Votes. 

7 For detailed illustrations of this see Appendixes Nos. 37, 38, and 39. 

8 See Appendix No. 40, Direct Legislation Defended; No. 41, How It Works; No. 
42, Genuine Democracy in Switzerland; No. 45, A Testimony, and No. 46, A Well- 
Seasoned Swiss Opinion. 




6 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Fifth. It will be an educational force of great potency and value. 
Its indirect effects will be of far more value than its direct effects. It 
will be a parliament for man, informing, inspiring, developing him. 
As a celebrated Swiss statesman says, a communion in voting develops 
an identity of interest and the social conscience. It unifies and knits 
a nation together. 1 

Sixth. Whether wise, necessary, practical, or not, it is coming. The 
method of its growth, the spontaneous generation of the agitation for 
it, not only all over this country but in the highest civilized portions 
of the globe; the rapid but sturdy growth of that agitation, the fact 
that a step once taken is never receded, all betoken the inevitable. 
It is a part of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the times. All other forms of 
government are failing but democracy; the spirit of self-government 
is growing stronger and stronger. 

Only an outline of the principal arguments are given here. For a 
fuller treatment, see the various appendixes, written by able men 
and several of them specially written for this report. These fill out 
and strengthen the skeleton given here. In two, Appendixes Nos. 22 
and 23, the objections are considered. We desire a careful study of 
these appendixes. Appendix No. 54 contains a variety of drafts for 
the application of direct legislation to our national affairs. These 
drafts are suggestive. We do not recommend either of these specific¬ 
ally, but insert them as giving hints for future work in drafting the 
law we think will have to come in time, and we hope a short time. 


Appendix No. 1. 

THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

. By Hon. John O. Yeiser, of Omaha, Nebr. 

[Written for this report.] 

The constitutional and legal status of the referendum in America 
to-day is indeed a broad and extending subject. It is not a theory 
fraught with possible dangers, having existed in this country seem¬ 
ingly incog for generations. We have the referendum and only seek 
its extension. 

The constitutional amendments of every State in the Union except¬ 
ing Delaware are submitted to the voters for their acceptance before 
becoming operative, this being a law of the various constitutions. 
There is a tendency toward simplifying the submission of amend¬ 
ments, marked more particularly by doing away with the necessity of 
two successive legislatures giving their approval of submitting such 
amendments. 

Mr. Sullivan gives a few of the many interesting examples of the 

1 See Appendixes No. 14, An Educational Force; No. 15, A Parliament for Man- 
the last part of No. 40, Direct Legislation Defended, and No. 8, The New Time 
articles, particularly the symposium of Swiss statesmen. See Appendix No 10 
The Forces Behind Direct Legislation: Nos. 3, 4. and 24 through 53, for this history’ 
but in particular No. 24, Foreshadowings of Direct Legislation- No 25 The 
Direct Legislation Movement and its Leaders; No. 33, General Outline of Direct 
Legislation in Switzerland; No. 42, Genuine Democracy in Switzerland- No 4? 
Direct Legislation in France: No. 48, The Referendum in England- No 49 In 
New Zealand; No. 50, In Australia and New Zealand, and No. 51, In Australia 






DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 7 

referendum now practically and permanently established in this 
country. He says, upon page 83 of Direct Legislation: 

In fifteen States, until submitted to a popular vote no law changing the loca¬ 
tion of the capital is valid; in seven, no laws establishing banking corporations; 
in eleven, no laws for the incurrence of debts excepting such as are specified in the 
constitution, and no excess of “ casual deficits” beyond a stipulated sum; in sev¬ 
eral, no rate of assessment exceeding a figure proportionate to the aggregate 
valuation of the taxable property. Without the referendum Illinois can not sell 
its State canal; Minnesota can not pay interest or principal of the Minnesota rail¬ 
road; North Carolina cannot extend the State credit to aid any person or corpora¬ 
tion, excepting to help certain railroads unfinished in 1876. With the referendum 
Colorado may adopt woman suffrage and create a debt for public buildings; Texas 
may fix a location for a college for colored youth; Wyoming may decide on the 
sites for its State university, insane asylum, and penitentiary. 

Numerous important examples of the referendum in local matters in the United 
States, especially in the West, were found by Mr. Oberholtzer. There are many 
county, city, township, and school district referendums. Nineteen State consti¬ 
tutions guarantee to counties the right to fix by vote of the citizens the location 
of the county seats; so, also, usually of county lines, divisions of counties, and 
like matters. Several Western States leave it to a vote of the counties as to when 
they shall adopt a township organization, with town meetings; several States per¬ 
mit their cities to decide when they shall also be counties. As in the State, there are 
debt and tax matters that maybe passed on only by the people of cities, boroughs, 
counties, or school districts. Without the referendum no municipality in Penn¬ 
sylvania may contract an aggregate debt beyond 2 per cent of the assessed valua¬ 
tion of its taxable property; no municipalities in certain other States may incur 
in any year an indebtedness beyond their revenues; no local governments in the 
new States of the West may raise any loans whatever; none in other States may 
exceed certain limits in tax rates. With the referendum certain Southern com¬ 
munities may make harbor improvements, and other communities may extend 
the local credit to railroad and water transportation and similar corporations. The 
prohibition of the liquor business in a city or county is often left to a popular 
vote; indeed, “local option” is the commonest form of referendum. In Califor¬ 
nia any city with more than 10,000 inhabitants may frame a charter for its own 
government, which, however, must be approved by the legislature. Under this 
law Stockton, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Oaklandhave acquired new charters. In 
the State of Washington cities of 20,000 may make their own charters without 
the legislature having any power of veto. Largely, then, such cities make their 
own laws. 

In fact, the vast United States seems to have seen as much of the referendum 
as little Switzerland. But the effect of the practice has been largely lost in the 
great size of this country and in the loose and unsystematized character of the 
institution as known here. * * * 

Among the matters once left entirely to legislatures, but now commonly dealt 
with in constitutions, are the following: Prohibiting or regulating the liquor 
traffic; prohibiting or chartering lotteries; determining tax rates; founding and 
locating State schools and other State institutions: establishing a legal rate of 
interest; fixing the salaries of public officials; drawing up railroad and other 
corporation regulations, and defining the relations of husbands and wives and of 
debtors and creditors. 

Mr. Charles S. Lobinger, of the Omaha bar, contributing an excel¬ 
lent article on constitutional law to the American and English Ency¬ 
clopedia of Law, he included quite an extensive treatment of the 
referendum containing hundreds of court decisions from both State 
and United States Supreme Courts upon this principle. 

Mr. Lobinger says, upon page 1022 of Volume VI (2d ed): 

The submission of constitutions and amendments to a popular vote is a direct 
application of this principle, and from about the middle of the present century the 
delegation of legislative power by the States has rapidly-increased. 

The tendency has manifested itself in several forms: (1) In referring matters of 
local interest and administration to the electors of the locality interested; (2) in 
enlarging the scope of State constitutions by adding multitudinous administra¬ 
tive provisions, all of them being submitted to the voters, and (3) in the great 
popular interest in the referendum itself. A political tendency of such marked 
proportions involves questions and is fraught with consequences of the highest 
importance. To determine its limits and possibilities under constitutional restric¬ 
tions and judicial decisions will now be undertaken. 


8 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Upon the one hand, the supreme courts of Alabama, Arkansas, Col¬ 
orado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, 
Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri,, 
Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, 
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin have sus¬ 
tained the principle of the referendum as shown by Oberhaltzer’s 
Referendum in America, and the supreme courts of California, Dela¬ 
ware, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and Texas have taken a position against it. 

In the case of Rice v. Foster (4 How. (Del.), 479), the court, said con¬ 
cerning the right of submitting a law to a vote of the people: 

All the barriers so carefully erected by the Constitution around civil liberty to- 
guard it against legislative encroachment and against the assaults of vindictive, 
arbitrary, and excited majorities will be thrown down, and a pure democracy, 
the worst of all evils (?), will hold its sway under the hollow and lifeless form of 
a republican government. 

Indeed, as if in answer to the above, the supreme court of Illinois 
said, in case of People ex rel. v. Reynolds (5 Gilm. (Ill.), 1): 

If, by leaving this question to the people, the republican form of government is 
to be overturned and its principles subverted by a miniature democracy, may not 
the same awful calamities be apprehended from a miniature monarchy? 

In the case of State v. John Parker, as early as 1854, the supreme 
court of Vermont said: 

It is admitted on all hands that the legislature may enact laws the operation 
or suspension of which shall be made to depend upon a contingency. This could 
not be questioned with any show of reason or sound logic. It has been practiced 
in all free states for hundreds of years, and no one has been lynx-eyed enough to 
discover, or certainly bold enough to declare, that such legislation was, on that 
account, void or irregular, and it is in my judgment a singular fact that this 
remarkable discovery should first be made in the free representative democracies 
of America. 

In Missouri, California, and Washington the State constitution ena¬ 
bles the cities of these States to elect charter commissioners to pre¬ 
pare charters for their own government and submit the same to the 
voters of their respective cities for acceptance or rejection. And the 
remarkable feature is the improved charters obtained by this method 
of direct legislation. 

In 1884 the supreme court of Missouri held in case of Ewing v. 
Iloblitzelle (85 Mo., 64) that there could be no constitutional objection 
in permitting voters of a city to frame and adopt a charter for its 
government, if done in subordination to the constitution and laws of 
the State. 

An excellent treatise of this question, exclusively under the con¬ 
stitutions and laws of the States and United States, was prepared by 
Mr. Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Ph. D., and published bj^ the Univer¬ 
sity of Pennsylvania under the title of The Referendum in America. 

If our Constitution contains an impediment to the adoption of a 
system of legislation evolving from higher and scientific education, 
there is no reason why it should not be changed, as provisions in our 
Constitution were placed there in anticipation of just such develop¬ 
ments. 

The democracies of Athens and Rome, where people were obliged to 
assemble and listen to a speaker and vote by show of hands or the 
voice, are not demonstrative of a democracy for this age of system and 
education, where we have political divisions and subdivisions for 
voting simultaneously a secret written Australian ballot. The differ- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


9 


ence between the means of conveying political opinions to the respec¬ 
tive negative or affirmative side of a question then and now is as great 
as the difference between conveying freight or passengers from one 
side of a continent to another then and now. 


Appendix No. 2. 

[From Suggestions on Government, by Samuel E. Moffett. Published by Twentieth Century 
Company, New York. Collated by its author.] 

DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

The ideal democracy is that form of government in which the people 
in their own persons make their own laws. This was the only form 
of democratic rule known to the civilized republics of antiquity. It 
was abandoned for purely physical reasons, because as states grew in 
size it became impossible for the citizens to gather and deliberate in 
a single assembly, and it was not seen how they could deliberate and 
vote without coming together in one place. This was why Rousseau 
thought that a true republic must necessarily be small. Montesquieu 
saw the logical connection between democracy and direct popular leg¬ 
islation, and he, too, was staggered by physical difficulties. “As, in 
a free state,” he said, “every man who is held to have a free spirit 
ought to be governed by himself, the people in a body ought to have 
the legislative power; but as that is impossible in large states, and 
subject to many inconveniences in small ones, it is necessary that the 
people do by their representatives all that they are unable to do by 
themselves.” 

The Teutonic device of representation was such a convenient substi¬ 
tute for the unwieldy popular mass meeting that it gradually came to 
be looked upon as a political end in itself, instead of as a convenient 
means of enabling the electorate to evade the limitations of time and 
space, and we now hear practical methods of restoring the direct rule 
of the people criticised as “violations of the representative principle.” 
The representative system is a convenient medium for the transmis¬ 
sion of political power, just as a system of shafts and pulleys is a con¬ 
venient medium for the transmission of mechanical power, and it 
would be precisely as reasonable to object to a plan for gearing a 
generator directly to the machine it was to work, as a violation of the 
shaft-and-pulley principle, as to object to a practicable plan of direct 
legislation as an infraction of the principle of representation. * * * 

Our political methods directly penalize independence and honesty. 
As the only way of passing a given law is to elect legislators who will 
vote for it, and the only way of repealing it is to turn those legisla¬ 
tors out and replace them by others who profess different opinions, 
questions of legislation are inevitably and inextricably mixed with 
struggles for official place. From this it necessarily follows that when 
a new issue comes up for discussion, our lawmakers are under the 
strongest possible pressure to align themselves upon it, not accord¬ 
ing to their opinions of its merits, but according to what they believe 
to be the desires of their constituents; and that when they have once 
committed themselves in this way, they are impelled to do all in their 
power to confirm their constituents in these supposed desires, which 
they themselves may, and often do, believe to be dangerous delusions. 



10 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


If they failed to read the prejudices of their districts aright in the 
first place, or if, having read them aright and conformed to them, 
they allowed them to yield to increasing enlightenment, they would 
he in danger of losing their seats. Hence insincerity has become so 
completely the rule in representative governments that it has come 
to rank as a virtue; and a politician who is always true to his convic¬ 
tions endangers not only his place but his reputation. That this is 
literally true may be seen in the most cursory observation of current 
politics in America or Europe. It is not to be doubted, for instance, 
that there is a considerable number of Democrats who honestly 
believe in protection, and of Republicans who honestly believe in free 
trade. They are expected, however, to smother their own opinions 
and speak and vote in favor of measures which they believe to be 
wrong; and if they fail to do so they are impaled as traitors to their 
respective parties. 

In England a Liberal may be elected to Parliament on a general 
pledge to favor home rule, and when he begins to legislate he may find 
that the particular home-rule bill introduced by the leaders of his 
party is, in his judgment, so radically defective as to endanger the 
national safety. Nevertheless he must support it or be branded as a 
renegade. And, indeed, this enforcement of party discipline at the 
expense of personal independence, and even honesty, is a necessity 
under the present system, since it is the only way in which the people 
can retain any sort of control over legislation. But its effect in lower¬ 
ing the tone of public men is obvious. No politician can habitually 
defend measures of which he does not approve, for the sake of retain¬ 
ing his party standing and official place, without blunting his sense 
of right and wrong. 

This deterioration of character would be bad enough if it accom¬ 
plished effective results; but it does not even do that. The system 
that produces it is, of all known devices, the clumsiest, slowest, and 
most uncertain method of reaching any desired end. It has kept the 
United States in a ferment over the tariff for a hundred years and has 
settled nothing yet. Discussion on this subject has hardly advanced 
an inch since the debates on the first revenue act of 1789. For nearly 
twenty years our parties have been trying to find out what the people 
want done about silver, in order that the politicians may know what 
opinions to hold themselves, and they are rather more at sea now than 
they were in 1875. 

The only logical theory of representative government is that the 
people select the wisest men among them to decide things which they 
do not know enough to decide for themselves. There is much to be 
said for such a theory as that. If it could be thoroughly and con¬ 
sistently carried out, it would be quite likely to give us an able gov¬ 
ernment—and a corrupt one. But it never is, and never can be, 
consistently carried out. Public opinion will insist on making itself 
felt, and the moment public opinion begins to interfere in the delib¬ 
erations of a legislature we paralyze the judgment of the legislators 
without giving effective play to the desires of the people. 

A Member of Congress, intent above all else upon saving his seat, 
hears ascending to him a confused roar of demands from which he 
must contrive to extract the divine vox populi. Delegations of man¬ 
ufacturers and workingmen visit him to protest against the reform of 
the tariff; mass meetings of his party insist upon immediate and 
radical reductions; newspapers command him to work for high, low, 


11 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

medium, or no duties on fifty different articles produced or consumed 
in his district; letters and telegrams pour in upon him urging him 
to support and oppose the free coinage of silver, to favor the coinage 
of the seigniorage and its sale as old junk, to promote the extension 
of the national banking system and the substitution of State bank 
issues. He reads election returns, and is told that the result means 
that the people do not want tariff reform; that they are incensed at 
the delay in giving it to them; that they are enraged at Congress for 
its partiality to silver, and infuriated at the President for his devo¬ 
tion to gold. In the confusion his own opinions, if he ever had any, 
utterly evaporate. 

If we abandon the principle of independent action by legislators 
trusted to do what is best without regard to public opinion, we must 
fall back on the theory that the members of a lawmaking body should 
be true representatives of the people, endeavoring to the best of their 
ability to carry out the popular will, and held accountable by their 
constituents for the fidelity with which they execute their trust. This 
idea is clearly stated by Mr. Woodrow Wilson, one of the ablest advo¬ 
cates of the party system of legislation: 

It should be desired that parties should act in distinct organizations, in accord¬ 
ance with avowed principles, under easily recognized leaders, in order that the 
voters might be able to declare by their ballots not only their condemnation of any 
past policy by withdrawing all support from the party responsible for it, but also 
and particularly their will as to the future administration of the government by 
bringing into power a party pledged to the adoption of an acceptable policy. 1 

There is conspicuous here the assumption, which lies at the base of 
all the arguments in behalf of pure representative government, that 
a “party policy” is a clearly defined unit, which may be unmistaka¬ 
bly condemned or approved by the voters. Yet the fact that it is 
nothing of the kind is one that lies on the very surface of our history. 
We have never had a national election whose returns made it possible 
to determine just what policy, in the sense of a programme of legis- 
tion, the people wanted, although there have been a very few elec¬ 
tions in which the popular will on some one overshadowing issue has 
been made tolerably clear. It was reasonably plain in 1864, for 
instance, that the Northern people favored the prosecution of the 
war, but the election threw no light on their ideas upon reconstruction, 
emancipation, negro suffrage, or the finances. 

To put the “party-policy” idea to the test, let us suppose that I 
desire the reform of the tariff, and object to the further coinage of 
silver, the intensity of my wish for tariff reform being represented by 
100, and that of my opposition to silver legislation being represented 
by 99. Suppose that my party passes a tariff bill satisfactory to me, 
and also passes a silver-coinage bill. I am called upon to render 
judgment upon this “policy” at the next election. I do violence to 
my convictions on the silver question for the sake of my preponder¬ 
ating convictions on the tariff; but my dissatisfaction (99) on one 
question must be deducted from my satisfaction (100) on the other, 
leaving me a net satisfaction of only 1 instead of the 199 which I could 
have had if I had been allowed to vote on each measure by itself. 

But this is putting the case too favorably for the “policy” theory. 
In this example the voter does get some opportunity, however slight, 
to move in the direction of his preponderating desires. But the situa- 


Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government. 



12 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


tion is not often so simple. Suppose, for instance, that my ideas of a 
national “policy,” quantitatively expressed, run like this: 

Tariff reform... - - -. 100 

Opposition to silver coinage.... 09 

Economy in government........ 80 

Annexation of Hawaii........- ---- - 50 

Extension of civil-service laws____ 50 

Strong navy...... 40 

419 

Suppose that my party meets my wishes on tariff reform and econ¬ 
omy (180) and the other party on silver, Hawaii, and the Navy (1991, 
while neither takes a satisfactory position on the civil service (50). 
Then, if I vote for my party, I vote for a policy of which I approve of 
only 180 parts and disapprove of 239; and if I vote for the other, I 
vote for a policy of which I approve of only 189 parts and disapprove 
of 230. Thus my net satisfaction is 59 less than nothing in one case 
and 41 less than nothing in the other. And, moreover, the situation 
is almost certain to be still further complicated by the nomination of 
candidates whom I do not consider fit to hold office, but for whom I 
must vote as the only way of exerting an influence on the choice of 
any policy at all. If the people were allowed to vote on measures as 
well as on men, I could exert my full power at the polls in favor of 
the Avhole 419 points of the policy I desired to see carried out, and, in 
addition, I could vote for the candidate I thought best qualified for 
legislative business regardless of his opinions on disputed political 
issues. 

A disadvantage of representative sovereignty, which has become 
unpleasantly conspicuous within the past year, is the power it gives 
to unscrupulous minorities. When one party holds either branch of 
a legislative body by a small majority, a few of its members can abso¬ 
lutely dictate its policy. A half dozen protectionist Democrats in 
the Senate held their partj^ by the throat last spring and summer, 
and compelled it to adopt a tariff programme which five-sixths of its 
voters would have repudiated. In order to pass a tariff bill it was 
necessary to buy the vote of each of these Senators by concessions to 
the interests he particularly represented. If a measure had been 
framed by a majority of the Democrats in Congress for submission to 
the people, it would have been drawn on broad, logical lines, capable 
of public defense on general principles. As the object in view was 
to secure the votes, not of six or seven million citizens, but of six or 
seven Senators, the measure was logically and necessarily drawn in 
the interest of the Senators rather than in that of the citizens. 

Another abuse that would be extirpated by direct legislation is the 
practice of log-rolling. An average legislative body will pass half a 
dozen bad measures of which no one, taken separately, would have 
strength enough even to gain consideration. The advocates of an 
unnecessary insane asylum at Goshen combine with the champions of 
a superfluous normal school at Podunk, and with the help of the 
friends of a useless reformatory at Wayback, a legislative majority is 
secured for a combined raid on the State treasury. No such combi¬ 
nation would be possible in a popular vote, where each proposition 
would have to stand on its own merits, and if such a poll could be 
demanded, most of the schemes whose success depends upon vote¬ 
trading in legislatures would never be heard of. 

But the most serious evil connected with the delegation of the uncon- 








DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


13 


trolled lawmaking power to a limited number of representatives still 
remains to be considered. It is the leverage given to corruption. That 
every man has his price is too hard a saying; but that the great major¬ 
ity of men have their price is the simple truth. When votes are quoted 
at $2 apiece, from 5 to 10 percent of the voters of a State can be bought. 
Ten dollars apiece would buy, perhaps, 20 per cent; $100 apiece would 
buy 50 per cent; and if the price were raised to $100,000 each, it is 
doubtful whether 1 voter out of 20 in any State of the Union could* 
resist the temptation. Now, it often happens that the enactment or 
defeat of certain legislation is important enough to rich corporations 
to make it worth their while to offer $100,000 each, if necessary, for 
the assistance of a few members of Congress or of a State legislature; 
but it would be impossible for any corporation to offer $100 apiece to 
a majority of the voters of the United States; and practically impos¬ 
sible to make such an offer to the majority of the voters of an average 
State. 

There are other ways, too, in which the private interests of legis¬ 
lators are made to influence their public action. The Congressional 
silver pool, at the time of the passage of the Sherman law of 1890, 
and the Senatorial speculation in sugar stock during the manipula¬ 
tion of the Wilson tariff bill in the Finance Committee became 
national scandals. Every great railroad whose interests are affected 
by legislation has its attorneys in Congress or in the State legisla¬ 
tures. The presidents and chief stockholders of important corpora¬ 
tions have held seats in the Senate, and openly spoken and voted 
in behalf of their private interests without betraying a thought of 
impropriety. 

It is said that the true remedy for these evils is to elect good men 
to office. The advocates of this happy and original idea will have 
everything their own way when they show us two things: First, how 
to insure the election of good men; and, second, how to keep them 
good after they are elected. It is useless to expect representatives to 
be very much better than the people they represent. It is as much as 
we can reasonably look for if they are no worse. A system of govern¬ 
ment whose satisfactory operation requires the continual election of 
archangels to office is not a practicable working system. To have a 
really stable fabric of government, we must base it upon enlightened 
self-interest. As Mill puts it: 

The ideally perfect constitution of a public office is that in which the interest of 
the functionary is entirely coincident with his duty. 

Now, the self-interest of the average man, acting as one of the mass 
of voters, lies in the direction of good and honest government. It is 
worth more to him to have cheap sugar, pure water, and safe, rapid, 
and comfortable transportation than to accept 50 cents from the 
sugar trust, a dollar from a water company, and $2 from a railroad, to 
be cheated, poisoned, jostled, and belated, with the prospect of being 
eventually flattened out or burned alive in a wreck. But the average 
man in the place of a legislator would certainly succumb to the same 
influences that corrupt the politician. It is the concentration of 
temptation that makes the difference. The pressure that would be 
easily resisted when spread over the whole community becomes crush¬ 
ing when converged upon one point. And this concentration exists 
simply because the action of the legislative body is final. If the peo¬ 
ple could always demand the right to pass upon the decisions of their 
representatives those decisions would no longer have a commercial 


14 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


value; the lobby would disappear, and legislative bodies would once 
more become deliberative assemblies in which it would be a pleasure 
for men of intelligence and conscience to sit, and in which it would 
be to the interest of all the members to do the best possible work. 

An appreciation of the unfitness of legislative bodies to exercise 
unlimited power has led to a growing practice in this country of apply¬ 
ing the referendum in its least scientific and most dangerous form. 
‘Deprived of the right to express their will, in case of need, in an 
orderly way, in the regular channels of legislation, the people have 
resorted to the objectionable device of law making by constitutional 
amendment. In many States the distinction between a constitution 
and a code has been almost wiped out. To check unfaithful legisla¬ 
tures, the ordinary course of law making has been so hedged about 
with minute restrictions that a plausible case of unconstitutionality 
can be made out against any statute distasteful to powerful interests. 
* * * A constitution ought to contain nothing but a frame of gov¬ 

ernment and the necessary guaranties of individual liberty and prop¬ 
erty against the excesses of a majority. To protect the majority 
against betrayal by its own servants is no part of the duty of an 
organic law. The majority ought to have the power to do that at all 
times for itself. If that power were secured to it, our State constitu¬ 
tions could be cleared of all the undergrowth of petty restrictions that 
now encumbers them, and the noble simplicity of the national consti¬ 
tution could be imitated everywhere. 

It may be said that the people are not qualified to frame the details 
of legislation. Undoubtedly they are not, and neither is a numerous 
representative body. The critics of Congress and of our State legis¬ 
latures can hardly find words to describe the botch-work with which 
our statute books are annually disfigured. Even in England, where 
the control of Parliament by the cabinet secures a certain degree of 
unity in legislation, things are not much better. On this point Mill 
remarks: 

Any government fit for a high state of civilization would have, as one of its funda¬ 
mental elements, a small body not exceeding in number the members of a cabinet, 
who should act as a commission of legislation, having for its appointed office to 
make all laws. * * * No one would wish that this body should of itself have 
any power of enacting laws: the commission would only embody the element of 
intelligence in their construction: Parliament would represent that of will. No 
measure would become a law until expressly sanctioned by Parliament; and Par¬ 
liament, or either house, would have the power not only of rejecting but of 
sending back a bill to the commission for reconsideration and improvement. 

Now, this device would work precisely as well in the preparation of 
laws to be submitted to the people as in that of laws to be submitted 
to a legislative body. If Parliament or Congress is incapable of con¬ 
structing or amending bills intelligently, if its proper function is 
merely to consider measures submitted to it by an expert commission, 
to say “yes” or “no,” or to send them back for amendment, its duties 
are quite within the capacity of the mass of the voters. Of course the 
public could not take time enough to consider all the bills that must 
be passed upon by a legislative body in the course of a year, but those 
supreme issues which absorb the popular mind, which divide parties, 
and with reference to which legislators profess to try to follow public 
opinion, could be quite as easily disposed of by direct vote of the peo¬ 
ple as by the circuitous and clumsy method of electing representatives 
to guess at what the people want. * * * 

Notwithstanding the inefficiency, confusion, and corruption that 
have flowed from the abuse of the representative principle, the fact 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


15 


remains that the device of representation in its proper place is an 
indispensable aid to good government. The people can safely intrust 
to a limited body the ordinary work of legislation. The one thing 
which they can not safely delegate to anybody, even for a limited 
term, is the sovereign power. They may never have occasion to 
review the work of their representatives, but unless they retain the 
legal right to do so they will inevitably find their interests betrayed. 
The quality of finality is what makes the acts of a legislature worth 
buying. * * * 

If a “sneak bill” could be challenged after the adjournment of a 
legislature and compelled to run the gauntlet of a popular vote it 
would not be introduced. The people would never be compelled to 
consider a palpably dishonest measure. The mere fact that a consti¬ 
tutional right of appeal to the polls existed would purify legislation 
at its source. A business man with an efficient manager may be so 
well served as never to find it necessary to interfere with his subordi¬ 
nate’s decisions. But he always is oareful to retain the power of 
interfering if necessary. If his confidence in his manager’s fidelity 
and ability led him to intrust to him absolute authority for two years 
to make contracts, buy and sell stock, and incur debts without any 
right of review on his own part, his business acquaintances would 
suggest that what he needed was not so much a manager as a guardian. 
And yet that is precisely what the people do in their political capacity, 
without even the excuse that their hired managers are able and hon¬ 
est. On the contrary, the universal complaint is that legislators are 
inefficient, ignorant, and corrupt, in spite of which we grant them 
powers which it would be unsafe to intrust to assemblies of sages and 
saints. 

The true object of representation is the convenient dispatch of 
business. The great bulk of the laws required by a State or the nation 
may properly be disposed of by representative bodies, provided always 
that the people retain the right of reviewing the decisions of the legis¬ 
lators whenever they think proper. It is not probable that the 
national acts so reviewed would average more than one a year. 
Nobody would wish to submit to popular vote an ordinary appropria¬ 
tion bill, or a bill for the establishment of a zoological park in the 
District of Columbia. It is only those great measures that touch the 
interests and arouse the passions of a whole people, or which affect 
vast combinations of capital so closely as to make corruption inevita¬ 
ble if they are disposed of by a small body, that need to be referred 
to the decision of the ultimate sovereign. And it is these very meas¬ 
ures that now fill our legislative bodies with ignorant and unscrupu¬ 
lous members, attracted by the opportunities for profit in them, and 
which repel the men whose character and talents ought to be at the 
service of the community, but who do not care to risk their reputa¬ 
tions by mingling in contests from which no man’s name emerges 
unscathed. 

There is no subject more important to the ultimate welfare of this 
country than that of the scientific care of forests. It is one that 
requires much expert investigation and studious attention to details. 
It is one of those questions which could be dealt with to the best 
advantage by small representative bodies, but Congress and the State 
legislatures have been so deeply absorbed in interminable struggles 
over issues each of which should have been settled by a single vote 
at the polls that they have hardly had time to give it a thought. 
International copyright, marriage and divorce laws, the promotion of 
S. 26-34 


16 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


scientific research, the improvement of the patent sj^stem, the devel¬ 
opment of irrigation, the systematic extension of water transporta¬ 
tion, the elevation of Government art and architecture, the increase 
in the efficiency of the postal service, and the investigation of the 
best means of relieving poverty, checking vagrancy, and preventing 
crime are a few out of hundreds of subjects which might profitably 
engage the attention of our law-making bodies. But our legislators 
seldom have time to think of such things. 

It is safe to say that within the past twentj^ years nine-tenths of the 
time of Congress not spent in the consideration of the regular appro¬ 
priation bills has been devoted to the five subjects of the tariff, the 
currency, the South, pensions, and private claims. Of these, the last 
should not have come before Congress at all, except for the formal 
confirmation, in bulk, of the decrees of another tribunal. The rest 
were proper subjects for decision by popular vote. “ A commission of 
eminent protectionists should have drawn up a symmetrical protect¬ 
ive tariff; another commission of well-known free traders should 
have framed a scientific tariff for revenue, and after a full public dis¬ 
cussion the people should have been allowed to choose between them. 
That would have settled the matter on a logical basis without waste 
of time. As it is, the majority of the Senate this year spent five 
months in the secret manipulation of a tariff bill, not in order to 
study and discuss its effects upon industry, commerce, and the public 
revenues, but to see how many favors would have to be given to each 
of a number of Senators for his vote. What these Senators needed 
was to be protected from themselves. A tariff decision by the people 
would have set them free for useful legislative work of a kind which 
the people would not be competent to perform. 

So with the currency. Doubtless the question of monetary stand¬ 
ards is too recondite to be fully understood by the average voter, but 
the average voter who is honestly trying to discover the truth is at 
least more likely to reach a sensible conclusion than the Congressman 
who carefully avoids the truth if it runs counter to his interpretation 
of the ignorant prejudices of his constituents. No harmonious cur¬ 
rency policy adopted twenty years ago, even if wrong in theory, would 
have been likely to do the damage that has been wrought by the 
unspeakable botchwork of insincere compromises perpetrated bj^ pol¬ 
iticians playing for their seats. The Massachusetts Railroad Com¬ 
mission, although it has no power to enforce its decisions, exerts more 
influence and commands more respect than the commissions in other 
States whose laws invest them with autocratic authority. The reason 
is obvious. In Massachusetts the commission, acting only through 
reason, must make the wisdom of its recommendations clear to the 
people, the legislature, and the railroads. It can not substitute brute 
force for argument. Having no powers of oppression, the corporations 
do not feel obliged to exert themselves to fill it with their tools, and 
men of high standing can serve in it without endangering their repu¬ 
tations. 

Similar considerations would improve the quality and increase the 
influence of legislative bodies if they were deprived of the dangerous 
gift of unchecked power. They could be safely trusted then to deal 
with a much wider range of subjects than now. Men of ability and 
character would be glad to join them, and take part in the discussion 
of the social, industrial, economic, scientific, and artistic questions 
with which they could occupy themselves, when there was no longer 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 17 

a,ny danger of becoming involved in a scandal over the grant of a 
franchise or the passage of a law to relieve a railroad of its taxes. 

The adoption of an important policy is a matter that should usually 
be decided by the people, but the detailed legislation needed to pro¬ 
vide for its execution is properly the work of the people’s representa¬ 
tives. In some cases, indeed, the people themselves should attend 
even to the details. A tariff bill, for instance, which, as usually 
framed, contains a scandal in every line, should be drawn up by a few 
experts of national reputation and voted upon as a whole. But, in 
general, the citizens can safely confine themselves to the broad out¬ 
lines of legislation. To fill in the lights and shadows in the most 
effective way is the true function of representation. 


Appendixes 3 and 4 omitted in printing. 


Appendix No. 5. 

SPEECH OF HON. G. H. REID, PREMIER OF NEW SOUTH WALES, 
WHEN INTRODUCING HIS REFERENDUM BILL INTO THE LOWER 
HOUSE OF THE NEW SOUTH WALES PARLIAMENT ON OCTOBER 
21, 1896. 

[As reported in the official ‘"Parliamentary Debates, Session 1896,” No. 24, pages 4241 and on.] 

At the opening of the session, so far from my concealing the scope 
of this measure, the matter was very explicitly dealt with in the gov¬ 
ernor’s speech. Of course honorable members know that a great 
many things have happened since then; but in the governor’s speech 
the Government defined the measure they intended to introduce. 

* * * It is rather striking that when the honorable gentleman 

(Member from Burwood) was a member of a very distinguished body, 
known as the Federal Convention of 1891, and when the most momen¬ 
tous issue that could ever be submitted to an intelligent people was 
at stake, he did not take long to vote, toward the end of the proceed¬ 
ings in favor of referring the momentous question, as to the adoption 
of that constitution which was to bind the nature of the political 
destinies of this country for centuries to the people. * * * 

This is really not so new a matter as some honorable members 
would like to make it out. As honorable members know, before the 
last appeal to the country we submitted a bill which contained two 
things—a reform of the legislative council and the referendum. That 
bill was probably brought in in the legislative council because it was 
only right that a bill which dealt with its constitution alone should 
originate in the chamber whose constitution it was dealing with, and 
we observed that form of courtesy. * * * We submitted all bills 

about the reform of the legislative council and the referendum before 
the general election, and with a view to an appeal to the people. 

* * * In his excellency’s speech, after referring to our proposals 

on this subject, the Government made this statement: 

Ministers intend to adhere to the course they marked out for themselves when 
before the country. A measure will shortly be submitted providing for reference 
to the electors of all important bills upon which the assembly and council have 
failed to agree in two consecutive sessions. 

S. Doc. 340-2 





18 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


There we announce in his excellency’s speech that we intend to 
adhere to the proposals made to the country, and then we go on to 
describe the scope of the referendum with which we intend to deal. 

[No. 25, pp. 4453, etc. Debate of October 28, 1896.] 

This is a measure which, unlike most of the measures which have 
been submitted by the Government during the present session, is one 
which calls more for a discussion of the principle of the measure than 
for any lengthy consideration of its details. * * * 

There is a mistake abroad as to what is called the referendum. A 
very large number of persons in British communities are apt to look 
upon the referendum as a new-fangled notion of ultra-Democrats, as a 
thing of entirely recent discovery. But I think I shall be able to show 
that the essence of the principle is one of the oldest features of the 
exercise of the legislative power. I do not care whether honorable 
members wish to go back as far as the days of ancient Rome or the 
times when the tribes of Germany, the Angles and the Gauls, met in 
rude assemblages to consider measures for the common welfare—even 
then this referendum principle was one of the vital principles of leg¬ 
islation. It is known to the student of history that the most primi¬ 
tive legislative assemblies in which the king or chief submitted legis¬ 
lative propositions which the people themselves by their direct vote 
pronounced upon. That is one of the most striking features in the 
primitive days of humanity of the earliest attempts at the exercise of 
the powers of legislation. Coming further down, we find that when 
those great instruments of modern thought, the American constitu¬ 
tions, were framed, again the principle of the referendum met with a 
striking acceptance. 

What is that marvelous, momentous contest which is now going on 
in the great Republic of the United States but an exercise of the ref¬ 
erendum principle—a reference to the great mass of the electors of 
the United States of the question whether Major McKinley or Mr. 
Bryan is to be the ruler of the American Government for a term of 
four years. * * * 

I should like to know—and I say this very much in reference to 
some who affect to believe that the electors are altogether too uncul¬ 
tured, too ignorant, to intelligently exercise this power—considering 
the enormous power which American Presidents have in the govern¬ 
ment of the Republic—I should like to know what more important 
question—compounded, I admit, of a thousand other questions—could 
be considered than that simple question—simple in the “yes” or 
“no”—in casting the vote for one man or another, but involving in 
the decision some of the most profound and most difficult questions 
which the human mind can study? At the present moment (October 
28, 1896) in the United States, not under any modern amendment to 
the Constitution, but under the original Constitution itself, there you 
have the electors deciding that simple, yet in other respects most diffi¬ 
cult, question as to whether silver or gold money shall be the stand¬ 
ard in the United States. 

Again, in the different States in the United States there is a provi¬ 
sion under which a number of questions must be submitted to the 
direct popular vote before any change in the laws of those States can 
be effected. Those again were provisions not modern, but made very 
many years ago. 

When that tremendous political convulsion took place in France in 
the year 1793, and when a new constitution was framed by some of 


19 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

the most brilliant and advanced intellects of the time, again the prin¬ 
ciple of the referendum was introduced in the shape of a provision 
that the laws of the National Assembly should be submitted under cer¬ 
tain conditions for the decision of the people scattered over France in 
their various communes. 

Knowing that the question which I refer to is one which often lihs 
had greater weight in discouraging the application of the referendum 
than has any process of reasoning—this idea of novelty—I should 
like to quote from the work by Oberholtzer upon The Referendum in 
America. This is in the introduction to his work: 

It is the author's purpose in this volume to make an investigation into the origin 
and growth in the United States of that popular governmental principle known in 
Switzerland as the referendum. As it occurs in Switzerland it has in the last few 
years received a large amount of attention from constitutional observers every¬ 
where, and the institution has been looked upon as a peculiar feature of the Swiss 
system. It has been studied by Englishmen and Americans as a sui generis, and 
many who have staked their hopes upon it as a useful political reform have advised 
that it be adopted in this country. It is to be shown in this volume that in Amer¬ 
ica we have already had much experience with the referendum, and that in every 
State in the Union, in the country, the city, the township, and the school district 
we employ, and in New England have employed since the Revolution, this same 
popular principle. 

Referring for a moment to Switzerland, there the principle of the 
referendum is no discovery of Swiss democrats of recent days. It is 
as old as the Swiss Confederacy itself. It is as old as the early days, 
hundreds of years ago, when the various governments there used to 
be represented in the Federal Diet, and all the decisions arrived at 
iu that Diet had to be referred, not, I admit, in those days to the peo¬ 
ple, but to the respective governments. 

I think it is well to have made these few preliminary observations, 
because there is no doubt that if a new departure in the way of an 
alteration of the Constitution is shown to be absolutely new that it 
never occurred to the human intellect in former times that fact would 
constitute a rational prejudice, if a prejudice can be rational, against 
the adoption of such a new principle. It was therefore important to 
show that the essential principle embodied in this bill, I admit in a 
very limited and cautious way, is not the discovery of some hair¬ 
brained enthusiast of modern days,, but has not only received the 
approval of men of the highest intellect and statesmanship, but also 
has been deliberately embodied in the laws of many intelligent and 
enterprising communities. I admit it is very difficult to find any 
adoption of this principle in the British constitution. It is, neverthe¬ 
less, becoming familiar in the British colonies, notably in reference 
to what is known as the liquor traffic. In reference to that subject, 
which is also a matter of very great importance and difficulty, the 
principle has been applied in British legislation in all the British col¬ 
onies and also in Canada; and I find that this question of applying 
the referendum to the constitution in the colonies is so much in prom¬ 
inence at the present moment that a bill on the subject has been intro¬ 
duced during the current session in no less than four Australian par¬ 
liaments—this country, Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand. 

More than that, I find that two years ago a royal commission was 
appointed in Victoria to investigate the question of constitutional 
reform, and not only does the commission report strongly in favor of 
the referendum in Australian constitutions, but it makes an explicit 
recommendation which follows almost exactly the lines of the bill 


20 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


which is now before this House. The commission made these observa¬ 
tions in their report of 1894: 

The commission are strongly impressed with the advantage of the referendum. 
It provides a simple method of obtaining an accurate expression of the popular 
will on any question. While the necessity of putting the referendum in force 
might only rarely occur, the power to obtain the decision of the voters would be 
an important factor, especially in any disagreements that might arise between the 
two houses. * * * 

Honorable members will see from the bill that the Government could 
scarcely proceed in a more cautious way than they are doing. There 
are many advocates of the referendum who are disappointed that the 
Government have not gone much further than we have done. Whilst 
I can sympathize very much with such a view, and whilst I confess 
that my confidence in the referendum as a new constitutional depar¬ 
ture is great, whilst I am perfectly prepared to see very large develop¬ 
ments of that principle at no distant date through the British 
Empire, I think the Government have been wise in recognizing what 
is after all in harmony with the political genius of the Anglo-Saxon 
race. * * * 

There are four classes of minds which have to be reckoned with 
whenever any important constitutional or political question is involved. 
There is the order of mind which is always longing to reverse the 
wheels of progress. For instance, there are people in this country 
who to-morrow would, if they could, abolish universal suffrage and 
establish a high property qualification, and they would honestly be¬ 
lieve that in doing that they were studying the best interests of the 
country. Then there is another class of mind not so active as the 
first, but equally obstinate in their attitude, who are perfectly satis¬ 
fied with everything that has been done and determined to make no 
single step in advance. Then there is a third class of mind, perhaps 
even more dangerous than the other two in some respects, which has 
a childish passion for novelty, which is charmed so much by phrases 
as to be carried away with all sorts of wild propositions the conse¬ 
quences of which they have never considered. Then, again, there 
comes a fourth order of mind, which, I think, is the wisest and the 
highest of all, and I think it prevails generally throughout the electo¬ 
rates of this country, and that is the mind that absolutely admits as 
one of the eternal laws a law of change, but which, at the same time, 
will always submit any proposed change to two tests—one being, “ Is 
the proposed change a wise one in itself?” and the other, “ Is this the 
proper time for its introduction?” 

Speaking of the first two classes of mind—the mind which is anxious 
to retrace the steps taken and the mind that is anxious not to 
advance—we can not help remembering in history, especially of our 
native land, the attitude that such minds have taken up with refer¬ 
ence to the great events which have marked the progress of constitu¬ 
tion making in England. For instance, in the days of King John 
there were many who sided with him against Magna Charta. Coming 
down later, there were many who sided with Charles I against the 
Petition of Rights, many who sided against the Bill of Rights. In Eng¬ 
land there were always people ready to approve of measures trampling 
the religion of England under foot. In Scotland there were always 
people ready to reenforce the arm of power in shooting down Presby¬ 
terians, and I think in Ireland the religion of that country has always 
been trampled under foot till late days, and there were always people 
at those respective stages and in those great struggles for reform who 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


21 


believed that reform was not only dangerous to the commonwealth 
but would destroy the character and reputation of the community. 
We have gone through marvelous transformations during which the 
conservative mind has always been in a state of antagonism, and I 
think we can sum the whole process up which was to have landed the 
English race and power in destruction a thousand times. We can 
sum up the history of England to-day as one which is magnificent 
proof of the fact that the more power is transferred from the few to 
the many the more enlightened and progressive the laws of the coun- 
try were made, the more stable and sound and honest were the con¬ 
ditions, the power, and progress of the country. I sometimes feel it 
necessary to deal with a subject in that way because I know that in 
this country to-day there are thousands of people who to-morrow 
would vote against the referendum because they believe it is a new 
departure and simply because it is a thing they are not accustomed 
to; and it is necessary to show how every stage of reform has been 
opposed in that way and Iioav every stage of reform has been accom¬ 
panied not by the uprooting of public morals, not by great licentious¬ 
ness of public character, not by selfish exactions of the many upon 
the wealth of the rich, but, on the contrary, by a more enlightened 
public conscience, by a more just and generous code of laws, all these 
things being accompanied by a large measure of additional, substan¬ 
tial progress and grand prosperity to all classes of people. * * * 

The general election of the British constitution and of the consti¬ 
tutions of British colonies is in itself a clumsy method of applying 
the principle of the referendum. When the House of Commons and 
the House of Lords can not agree upon a large measure of public 
policy, what is the step that must be taken to secure legislation? An 
appeal to the electors. The object of that appeal is to get the decision 
of the electors upon the measure in dispute. But how unsatisfactory 
is the method! In the first place, whilst the immediate subject of 
quarrel between the two houses may be a particular measure, it is 
impossible that any general election can be conducted solely with 
reference to that issue. When the great political parties of England 
prepare for a contest of that sort they try to collect candidates who 
personally would be the most popular in the electorates, and the 
more successful a party is in picking out popular candidates the more 
successful it is in regard to the election. It means that the parties 
hope to succeed not on the question referred to the electors, but 
because of the men whom they have chosen to contest the seats. 
People talk of measures and not men, but under our present system 
that happy state of political decision is impossible. The only way in 
which measures and not men can be submitted to the electoral judg¬ 
ment is by means of a referendum such as I propose. Surely it ought 
not to seem a startling or radical notion. 

Now that the power and right of the electors is universally con¬ 
ceded, now that it is admitted that their yea and nay is to be the 
supreme power, the final word in the law making of a nation, surely 
the next logical conclusion is that the great trust which the constitu¬ 
tion reposes in them should be exercised under conditions the most 
favorable to honest and wise legislation. So the Government pro¬ 
poses to substitute for the ancient, antiquated method of referendum 
what we submit is an infinitely better method of referring disputes 
to the electors. * * * 

If no referendum, then I say a single chamber. It must be one of 
the two. I believe that it is infinitely better that there should be a 





22 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

second chamber. I do not care what the constitution of that cham¬ 
ber is so long as it is subject to the play of popular opinion—so long 
as the electors of the country can come in between the two houses and 
decide their difficulties; and I should say that if I were a member of 
the other branch of the legislature, I should look upon the referendum 
as a most conservative institution. * * * 

It is a remarkable circumstance that in Switzerland, where the ref¬ 
erendum is in full play, in the ten years from 1874 to 1885 eighteen 
measures passed by the democratic chamber were sent on to the refer¬ 
endum to the electors, and thirteen of those eighteen proposals were 
rejected. The conservative effect of the referendum is shown by some 
extracts from acknowledged authorities. I will quote from a well- 
known authority on the Swiss referendum—Winchester. At pages 
169 and 170 he makes these remarks: 

To the confusion and dismay of the strongest advocates of the referendum, the 
measures which they most prized when so put have been negatived. Contrary to 
all expectations, laws of the highest importance, some of them openly framed for 
popularity, have been vetoed by the people after they have been accomplished by 
the federal and cantonal legislatures. The history of the referendum in Switzer¬ 
land confirms the fact that as a rule the people are not favorable to legislation 
[and that reminds me of a remark we often hear—that the people are never more 
happy than when the houses are shut up], and that the necessity must be great 
and the good ends aimed at only manifest to withstand direct consultation of the 
constituencies. 

Sir Francis Adams, who was British minister at Berne, in Switzer¬ 
land, and a man of very great authority, in a work by himself and 
Mr. Cunningham, says: 

The referendum has struck root and expanded wherever it has been intrduced, 
and no serious politician of any party would now think of attempting its aboli¬ 
tion. The conservatives who Violently opposed its introduction became its ear¬ 
nest supporters when they found that it undoubtedly acted as a drag upon hasty 
and radical lawmaking. 

These are not the expressions of an orator who is anxious to cajole 
another chamber into passing measures of this sort. These are the 
reflections of the British minister who resided in the country for 
many years. 

Now I will come to America, and will quote Bryce upon the opera¬ 
tion of the referendum in America as to the State constitutions. He 
says: 

But a general survey of this branch of the inquiry leads me to the conclusion 
that the people of the several States in the exercise of this their highest function 
show little of that haste, that recklessness, that love of change for the sake of 
change, with which European theorists, both ancient and modern, have been wont 
to credit democracy, and that the method of direct legislation by the citizens, liable 
as it doubtless is to abuse, causes in the present condition of the States fewer evils 
than it prevents. 

So, both in Switzerland and the United States, very eminent author- 
ties point out that the effect of the referendum, instead of throwing 
the destinies of the country into the hands of a mob, has been to show 
that the people are infinitely more accomplished and more able and 
more sensible, more generous and more just, than those who affect to 
decry them. Switzerland is a country which is not, perhaps, very 
well known to the average reader, but no man can read the history of 
that country without forming an opinion of the highest character 
with reference to the Swiss race. A more chivalrous race, a race 
more prepared to sacrifice for independence and liberty, never existed 
in this world, and it is a type of democracy which some of our Demo- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


23 


crats could scarcely understand. It is not a democracy which thrives 
on class distinctions. It is a democracy in which men of all classes 
and of all interests feel themselves to be fellow-citizens in their coun¬ 
try, and questions of caste or aristocracy never arise, questions of 
ultra democracy never arise there, because the freer the people 
become there the more consolidated, the more patriotic, they become. 

I should like to quote from an article in a very conservative jour¬ 
nal—the Edinburgh Review of January, 1890. In the opinion of the 
journal, and Mr. Bryce takes the same view, the establishment of a 
referendum is simply transferring to the people what used to be a 
very effectual instrument of power in the Dark Ages, the royal veto. 
In the early stages of the British constitution there was a veto. It 
was the veto of the Sovereign, an irresponsible veto freely used, and, 
as the constitution declares, the royal veto fell more and more into 
disuse, until now it is practically inoperative. One is the appeal to 
the people on a question of legislation, but giving them the sovereign 
power which was exercised by the British constitution by the Tudors 
and Plantaganets of ancient times. 

The more we look at this matter and the more we get away from 
the somewhat unfamiliar name we see that it is only one of the prin¬ 
ciples of the old constitutions of the world, modernized by handing 
the power over to the electors of the country. 

There is another phase of this matter which I would like to put 
before the House. Some men of conservative instincts affect to look 
upon this bill as a most dangerous and unjustifiable proceeding. I 
will come away from all reference to the history of other nations and 
the opinions entertained in other countries and come down to an 
Australian assemblage which met in this very chamber a few years 
ago. Whatever we think of the provisions of the draft bill of that 
convention, I do not think that anyone has ever denied that there 
were gathered here from the other colonies on that occasion a number 
of men of the highest intellect and experience. They had one of the 
most serious tasks to accomplish; they had to draft a constitution 
for federated Australia. T do not know that any set of men could be 
asked to-day to undertake a question more full of difficult problems 
than were the gentlemen asked to draft a constitution of that kind. 
As to the conservative character of the gathering, there can be no 
two opinions. After this triumph of industry and ability was com¬ 
plete, and the constitution was ready for the breath of life, the very 
serious question arose in that conservative gathering, “What mode 
should be adopted to legislate that constitution into life?” Strange 
to say the referendum was the method unanimously adopted by that 
distinguished body. Sir Samuel Griffith, who certainly at the con¬ 
vention showed no rash leanings toward any new ideas, submitted 
this proposition to that body: 

That this convention recommends that provision be made by the parliaments of 
the several colonies for submitting for the approval of the people of the colonies, 
respectively, the constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia as framed by this 
convention. 

Sir Samuel gave some very good reasons for adopting that course. 
He said: 

The honorable member, Mr. Playform, this morning, in speaking on the motion 
for the adoption of the constitution, pointed out what he considered might be a 
very serious objection to the adoption of that form of procedure, that is, that the 
question of the adoption of the constitution might be mixed up with party politics. 
If, as I anticipate, it would not be thought fit that any parliament should take so 


24 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


important a step without clearly obtaining the opinion of the electors upon the 
subject, still it would not be very difficult to submit the question for the opinion 
of the people at a general election. Take, for instance, the question of protection 
or free trade. One might be a protectionist and in favor of this constitution: 
another man might be a free trader and opposed to this constitution. If a general 
election took place, and the question were submitted to the approval of the people, 
the decision, I am afraid, would depend upon whether the electors were in favor 
of protection or free trade rather than whether they were in favor of or against 
federation. Therefore, it is very desirable that as far as possible the question 
should be iiept distinct. 

The motion was carried by 24 votes to 7, so that the whole assem¬ 
blage of conservative, distinguished, experienced, colonial statesmen 
emphatically stamped their approval on the principle of the referen¬ 
dum in connection with the most difficult measure of legislation which 
could be conceived. * * * 

So far from this method which the Government is proposing being 
a somewhat rash and dangerous proceeding which has no weight or 
authority, it is a system which in an infinitely more elaborate form 
exists in Switzerland. It is a system which in one form or another 
has existed from the earliest times, and it is in my opinion a system 
eminently calculated to meet the difficulties which exist in this country 
to-day. On all these grounds, sir, I submit the bill to the house with 
great confidence. I feel convinced that if it becomes a law it will 
prove a happy issue out of many grave and threatening political diffi¬ 
culties. I also feel convinced, sir, that it will fairly and safely redress 
the balance of the constitution in the interests of good government 
and intelligent legislation, tending to the permanent advantage of all 
classes of the community. 

[Extract from the speech of Mr. Waddell (member from Cobar) at same sitting ] 

It is simply the perfection of the representative system—that is, 
that when there is any doubt as to the will of the people, they should, 
by a direct vote, determine the question. * * * 

It will make honorable members feel more independent, if that is 
possible. They will feel that they can give freer scope to their 
wishes in regard to bills, because the} 7 will recognize that if the 
council refuses to pass them, this house can refer them to the people 
for their decision. I recognize that there is a danger of active minor¬ 
ities in the country forcing legislation not only through this house 
but also through the other house, unless we have a method of this 
kind to take the will of the people in the country. We all know the 
tremendous influence which an active body of men has in the pass¬ 
ing of legislation. It may be only an eighth, or possibly a smaller 
proportion, of the voters who take a very active part in forcing leg¬ 
islation through parliament. But the very fact that they make a 
great deal of noise and agitation may lead this house—I believe in 
some instances it has led this house—to believe that it was the will 
of the masses of the people. If the referendum is incorporated in 
our constitution, honorable members who may feel that a mistake is 
being made will have an opportunity to do all they can to see that 
the bill is referred to the people. Unless we have some provision in 
the constitution for taking the will of the majority, we will be con¬ 
tinually running the risk of having important legislation—the capi¬ 
tal punishment abolition bill, for instance—passed which the vast 
majority of the people do not believe in. That is another reason why 
I give my warmest support to this bill. 


25 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Appendix No. 6. 

SPEECH BY THE HON. ED. BATCHELELOR, REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WEST ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA. IN PARLIAMENT, IN SUP¬ 
PORT OF A BILL INTRODUCED BY HIM. 

[As reported in the Parliamentary Debates, S. A., 1895, vol. 1, p. 1346.] 

The referendum had been described as a democratic-conservative 
movement, and according to a recent telegram he noticed that it had 
found a place in the policy of the Conservative party in England. It 
also- formed a part of the policy of the New Zealand government, 
whose general lines were not on all fours with those of Lord Salis¬ 
bury’s Government in England. 

In Victoria a royal commission on constitutional reform, com¬ 
posed of Sir Graham Berry, Mr. Turner, Mr. Isaacs, Mr. Best, Mr. 
Peacock, Mr. Trenwith, and Mr. Shiels, had advocated it with one 
dissentient, Mr. Shiels, who, although he was in favor of the refer¬ 
endum in some cases, did not think it would prevent deadlocks between 
the two houses of the legislature. The fact that the commission was 
composed of members of all shades of political opinion proved that it 
was not a party question, and if any further proof were wanted, a 
perusal of the results that had followed its introduction in Switzerland 
would show that although a strictly democratic measure and on the 
lines of giving the greatest power of government to the people, it had 
had a conservative tendency. 

He would have liked to have given a historical sketch of the devel¬ 
opment of the idea and the causes which led to* its adoption and its 
results in the only country which had yet accepted the system in its 
entirety, but although that would be both interesting and instructive, 
he would confine his attention to proving that it would be of advan¬ 
tage to South Australia. The experience also of Switzerland would 
hardly serve as a guide to us, as their political institutions were 
utterly dissimilar to our own. At the same time, he thought he was 
entitled to ask members not to sneer at any reference to Switzerland, 
as some were accustomed to, because, whatever might be said of 
Switzerland, its Government was the most stable and the least revo¬ 
lutionary of any of the republics, and he might add of any country 
in the world. 

If democratic institutions were on their trial, a study by democrats 
of the Swiss constitution would repay the trouble. He was talking of 
the constitution of Switzerland since 1849. As practiced in Switzer¬ 
land, and as he proposed in the bill, the referendum might be described 
as a modern device for securing a direct vote by the people on the laws 
passed by their representatives, a system which, while retaining the 
chief features of representative government, reposed the final decision 
of important matters in the people. The referendum was not to be 
confounded with the French system of the plebiscite, for there were 
many essential differences between the two systems. 

The plebiscite was an irregular proceeding, sometimes called into 
operation by the government of the day when they considered it 
likely to further their interests. It was a popular vote on a proposed 
policy prior to debate, and the time for taking the vote being arranged 
by the executive of the day. That gave great power to the execu¬ 
tive to take advantage of any passing popularity to get legislative 
sanction from the people to some proposal they advocated. 


26 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


The referendum was a regular proceeding, which was not called 
into being except by the people, and the vote of the people could only 
be taken after the fullest possible debate in both Houses of Parlia¬ 
ment, in the press, and on the platform. 

If a vote were taken on the question, “Are you in favor of federa¬ 
tion?” that would be a plebiscite; but if a vote should be taken for or 
against a federation bill, after the bill had been finally thrashed out 
and its details arranged and a vote taken by the community, that 
would-be in the nature of the referendum, except that with the refer¬ 
endum the power to take a vote was in the hands of the people. 

He did not attach much importance to the argument that the refer¬ 
endum was an attempt to destroy the constitution. The British con¬ 
stitution, of which they were all so proud and whose strength was 
that it was not a written, unchanging constitution, was constantly 
altering with the spirit of the times. 

English constitutional history was said to be a record of the trans¬ 
actions by which the prerogatives of the Crown had been transferred 
to the liberties of the p>eople. 

This proposal was strictly on the lines of all constitutional strug¬ 
gles in English history. So far as the objection that it undermined 
the constitution was concerned, every alteration of the franchise was 
an alteration of the constitution. 

The constitution of England was not what it was fifty years ago, or 
what it would probably be fifty years hence. Representative govern¬ 
ment found its best exponent in Burke, whose views were generally 
accepted as being most lucidly expressed and as representing just 
about what the most mature minds had considered to be the true 
theory of representative government. 

He had a short quotation from a speech Burke delivered to his con¬ 
stituents at Bristol on the declaration of the poll, when he said: 

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative 
to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved 
communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight 
with him; their opinion high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is 
his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions to theirs; and above 
all. ever and in all cases to prefer their interest to his own. 

But his unbiased opinion, his matured judgment, his enlightened conscience he 
ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he 
does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. 

They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answer- 
able. Your’representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; 
and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion. 

He admitted that there the opposite principle to the referendum 
was D 1 down. He was not going to argue against what Burke had 
said as to the system of representative government, but that the quo¬ 
tation contained the clearest and best exposition of the true theory 
of representative government there could be no question. Several 
writers had also written on the question of representative government 
as practiced to-day, and Morrison Davidson, in Let there be Light, 
said: 

How different it is to-day! I used to be much amused at the reception fre¬ 
quently accorded to M. P.’s by the old Democratic Club in Chancery Lane while 
it yet flourished. They were apt to be treated as blind Samsons—good only to be 
made “sport” of by scornful Philistines of unadulterated democracy. “What’s 
his little game? ” was the inquiry expressed or implied in nearly every case. 

It seemed to be taken for granted that a member of Parliament must be a fraud, 
a humbug, or an imposter of some sort, and indeed the most open-minded legisla¬ 
tors that came among us seemed largely to share in that opinion themselves. The 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


27 


truth is the representative system is based on a fiction of the grossest character. 
The representative is fabled to be a selfish, collective being, through whom his 
constituents speak and act. Before election he is consumed with zeal for the pub¬ 
lic interest. He forgets himself in his anxiety for the welfare of the community. 
But the moment he is elected he is a different being. The electors have lost their 
authority, and he has gained it. He wishes to rise in the world, and the constitu¬ 
ents are the rungs of his ladder. He work for the community? Not much! He 
expects the community to work for him; if not in one way then in another. 

He read that not because he agreed with it, but because it was the 
opinion of a clever writer on representative government as practiced 
at present. 

(Mr* Glynn. “Here comes a politician; lock up the spoons.”) 

The representative system as laid down by Burke could not be car¬ 
ried out under present conditions, as since Burke’s time circumstances 
had greatly changed. 

Large masses of the people had been enfranchised since then, while 
infinitely greater interest was taken in politics by electors than used 
to be the case, and the average standard of education was higher, so 
that every man had his own opinion on various political subjects. 

The idea that once prevailed that electors selected an individual to 
represent them because they believed his judgment was more mature 
and his experience riper did not enter very largely into the minds of 
electors at the present time. 

Electors now asked and got in every general election pledges from 
candidates on matters of policy, and the continual demand for pledges 
had rendered members more and more the delegates of their constit¬ 
uents. They might fight against it, but the fact remained. 

Members might say they would give no pledges, but though here 
and there a member might be able to give a minimum of pledges, he 
was either a very lucky man or had a very subservient constituency. 
The party system had not developed to the same extent in South Aus¬ 
tralia as in older countries, especially in England, but under that 
system the idea of representative government became beautifully less. 

Members were selected in the old country by party wirepullers. 

In England the clubs selected the individuals who were to run for 
the various districts, and they were upheld principally on party lines. 
At the last general election some most matured politicians of the 
ripest judgment and highest culture had been dropped. For instance, 
it must be a matter for general regret that such men as John Morley 
were left out. He was thrown aside, not because he was not consid¬ 
ered a fit man to represent the people, but from a number of causes 
which it would be difficult to state. The principal reason, no doubt, 
was the animosity felt toward the party to which he belonged. >, 

All sorts of reasons had been assigned for the defeat of the Lib¬ 
erals—home rule, the employers’ liability bill, the attack on the House 
of Lords, maladministration, disestablishment, bimetallism, and a 
general desire for change. 

The reasons which led to the overthrow of the Liberal government 
were unfathomable, but it was certain that both here and in England 
a general election is utterly useless to prove what the country thinks 
on any .single matter under the sun. It was an old gag to object to a 
measure “ until the constituencies have had an opportunity of express¬ 
ing an opinion upon it at the general election.” They used the 
expression, but every one of them was aware that they were talking 
downright cant, because they knew that under the present system it 
was impossible for the country to express its views on any particular 
question. 


28 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


The idea of government by the wisest had to some extent gone from 
the minds of the electors, but the personal element had still a great 
deal to do with success. The generous, genial candidate who was a 
good patron of sport always stood a good show. The people might 
vote for another man because he was an Irishman, or a German, or a 
South Australian native, a local resident, or because he had secured 
their sympathy by being persecuted in some way, or because he was 
sound on the education question or the land question, or even because 
his opponent was too fond of his cups or had been somewhat loose in 
his morals. The immediate popularity of a government also influ¬ 
enced the election of its supporters. 

(Mr. Brooker. You are rather rough on the electors.) 

Electors were only human, although some candidates might worship 
them as almost divine. When a general election was over, what idea 
of the views of the people could really be gained from it? It was true 
that sometimes, as in 1893, one could trace a sort of general approval 
of certain broad lines of policy in Adelaide and the suburbs. 

(Sir John Douner. On what?) 

On the Labor party’s platform. 

(Sir John Douner. That was the nearest.) 

He would now consider the position of the elector himself, who was 
placed in a continual struggle between his wishes to carry out repre¬ 
sentative government and his desire to see certain measures passed. 
The electors, in order to obtain what they wanted, had to vote against 
many other things which they also wanted, for the most accommodat¬ 
ing candidate could not meet all views. 

Take a case. There was a meeting of brewers’ employees held to 
which certain members of the house were invited to listen to what the 
employees had to say against the brewers’ monopoly bill. 

Presuming that most of those members were to vote for that bill in 
the event of its coming up again, what would the position of the 
employees be at the general election? They would consider that this 
bill more than any other directly affected tlieir interests. 

At the same time, on all matters of general policy their views would 
be in accord with those who voted for this particular measure. 

If they wished to conserve their private interests they must vote 
against those who they considered were working in their interest on 
all other questions. 

Suppose next that the premier and Sir John Downer were both 
candidates for Barossa at the next election. 

On general lines it would be fair to say that the electors agreed with 
Sir John Downer; but he would suppose that two questions—the 
State advances bill and the New Zealand treaty—were still unde¬ 
cided, and that Sir John Downer was still opposed to both of them. 

Thus the electors would have to vote against measures which they 
favored in order to retain Sir John Downer as their representative; 
or, on the other hand, if they desired to have these two measures car¬ 
ried they must vote for the premier, whose general politics they 
might detest. 

Electors were placed in this sort of difficulty at every general elec¬ 
tion more or less. 

Now, how could Parliament be really made to represent the wishes 
of the majority? It was because he believed the referendum would 
overcome these difficulties that he advocated it. There were some 
objections, of course, to the system of taking the popular vote, and 
one of these, it was argued, was that the importance of parliamentary 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 29 

debate would be diminished. He admitted that that did appear so, but 
on closer examination it would be seen that the reform would conduce 
to the greater importance of parliamentary debate. The speeches 
made in Parliament admittedly exercised precious little influence on 
votes. The fate of measures was invariably decided before those 
measures made their appearance. More votes were influenced by a 
speech at a caucus meeting of either the Country party or the Labor 
party than by the best rhetorical effort on the floor of the house. 

Another objection raised was that the adoption of the referendum 
would detract from the present importance of members of Parliament. 
It was onty fair to quote the opinions of those who had written on the 
experience of Switzerland in connection with this matter. 

In the March number of the Contemporary Review one of the fore¬ 
most of Swiss statesmen, Numa Drox, wrote as follows: 

Be this as it may, under the influence of the referendum, optional or compulsory, 
a profound change has come over the spirit both of Parliament and the people. 
The idea of employer and employed, of the sender and the sent, which lies at the 
root of the representative system, becomes an absolute reality, The people still 
choose their representatives to make the laws, but they reserve the right of sanc¬ 
tion. When they reject a law, in virtue of this sovereign right, there is no enter¬ 
ing on a state of conflict, for a conflict can only take place where the exercise of a 
right is met by a competing claim; and there is here no claim to compete. 

The craftsman carries out the work to his own satisfaction; the employer who 
gave the order is of a different opinion, and sends it back to be altered. It is per¬ 
fectly simple. Each has done his duty within the limits assigned him. There 
is no ground of quarrel. The legislator is not discredited; he is only in the posi¬ 
tion of a deputy whose bill is not passed. There is no question of resigning. If 
here and there a measure is rejected other measures are passed. There is clearly 
no want of confidence. Moreover, after rejecting a law it is quite common to 
reelect the same representative. Thus the new regime leaves no room for either 
ministerial or parliamentary crisis. The representatives of the people are elected 
for a comparatively short term, generally three years. 

During this time—thanks to the restraining referendum—they can do nothing 
really contrary to the public will, at least in any essential matter. If they prove 
incapable, or if their action gives cause of complaint, they are replaced at the 
next elections, and there is an end to it. We are far enough by this time from 
that era of revolution which marked the period between 1815 and 1848. But every 
medal has its reverse. The fear of the referendum tends to make timid legisla¬ 
tors. who sometimes lack the courage to vote for what they believe to be the best 
for the country, or, having voted for it, to stand up for it before their fellow- 
citizens: they prefer to let it go without a struggle. The referendum has also 
given birth to a camarilla of politicians, who exploit the credulity or passions of 
the populace in order to expose measures which are perfectly legitimate. 

Nevertheless the new system has borne good fruits. The people have generally 
shown themselves wiser than the meddling politicians who have tried to draw 
them into systematic opposition. 

If now and then they have voted under the influence of obvious ill humor with 
their own representatives, they have, on the other hand, more than once given the 
agitator clearly to understand that he had no chance with them. The net result 
has been a great tranquillizing of public life. The debates which precede and 
accompany a referendary movement are a normal manifestation of the popular 
life And when the ballot has pronounced everybody accepts the result; not infre¬ 
quently the press, which loves to parade itself as the voice of public opinion, has 
been belied by the vote. Those who make the most noise can not here impose on 
the people as they do in other countries, they are taken for what they are really 
worth. 

Such a summing up was certainly very strongly in favor of the ref¬ 
erendum. He appealed to members as to whether there was anything 
at all derogatory in the fact of a man being in a minority. Another 
objection to the reform, and this the strongest objection, was that the 
people were less able to judge of measures than of their representa¬ 
tives. But the present system set people the still harder task of 
judging between representatives and measures. In every election 


30 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


electors tried to express their views directly and get them advocated 
by members of the House. But, owing to the multiplicity of questions 
which came before them, it was utterly impossible for members to 
note that expression of opinion. 


Appendix No. 7. 

DIRECT LEGISLATION BY THE PEOPLE VERSUS REPRESENTATIVE 

GOVERNMENT. 

By Hon. Charles Burkly, of Zurich, Switzerland. 

[Translated from a Swiss pamphlet published in 1869.] 

The experience of the past twenty years has entirely cured the 
working classes of Europe of the idea that imperial democracy and 
imperial socialism—that is, the dictatorship of a single person—are 
capable, or even willing, to do anything for the social education of the 
working classes. These have been merely apparent reforms, dust 
thrown in the eyes of the people, while in reality the workman is more 
than ever a victim of taxation and food for powder. 

Since the coup d’etat of Bonaparte (1852), the belief has, with great 
astuteness, been spread among the working classes that political or 
state reforms have nothing to do with social reforms, and that there¬ 
fore the workingman should not occupy his attention with politics, 
but solely with the improvement of his social position. The ruling 
classes know only too well by experience what a great advantage they 
derive from political forms favorable to themselves, and that so long 
as the working population allows itself to be led without volition in 
political matters, and has no direct influence upon legislation, it will 
not devise a form of government favorable to the interests of labor. 
Socialism, even of the most radical kind, is a mere bugbear without 
any danger, because the political fulcrum is wanting to its social 
lever, wherewith it may lift from off its hinges the old form of society 
with its poverty of the masses and its individual wealth. Social reform 
is condemned to remain in a state of theory until the right means are 
found to put it into practice, and these means can be no other than, 
above all, to bring about a governmental reform of such a nature that 
the laws shall henceforth be made by the voice of all the citizens, and 
no longer according to the wishes of the privileged few. 

The political movement in Switzerland is perhaps only a symptom, 
a prelude to the great and deeply penetrating movement which is about 
to agitate European politics. The bourgeois republic, or representa¬ 
tive democracy, is on the point of dying out in Switzerland; for it has 
been found insufficient to combat the injurious influence of Jesuitism; 
and pure democracy now steps forward, by which the people take a 
direct part in legislation, and can, therefore, transform it in accord¬ 
ance with its social requirements. 

Representative government is everywhere the same. The work¬ 
men of Paris remember only too well how in the days of June, 1848, 
those middle-class representatives endeavored to solve the social 
problem with grapeshot; and quite recently the miners of Belgium 
have found out that their constitutionalists, too, know of no other 
means than powder and shot. Nay, even in the representative 
democracy of Zurich there existed for more than twenty years (1845- 
1867) severe laws against the coalition of workmen, and against the 



31 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

social-democratic # press. So long as the workmen allow the mws of 
the state to be manufactured and forced upon them by those who 
live by using up the workmen, so long will the laws be unfavorable 
to the toiling masses and favorable to the masters only. When did 
a monarch ever make laws in the interest of his people and against the 
interest of his dynasty? First comes himself, his interest, his dynasty, 
and then the welfare of the tools who support him in working the com¬ 
monwealth for his own benefit; and it is only at last, when all these 
worthies have had their fill, that the much-squeezed people are 
thought of at all, and then too often stones are offered to them 
instead of bread. There are, indeed, so-called Christian monarchs, 
who, like good-natured riders, stroke or pat the neck of the creature 
panting under their weight; but that the heavily burdened animals, 
ridden to soreness, would best be helped if the master and all his 
train would dismount is a thing which never occurs to the one above 
until the one below throws him off. 

In the same manner an aristocracy can make excellent laws for 
themselves, but not for the people. Has the aristocracy of England, 
perhaps the cleverest body of its kind in existence, ever done any¬ 
thing in the interests of the workingman? No. If they have retained 
their position until now, it is only because they have not shown over¬ 
much obstinacy in strenuously opposing reforms that had become 
absolutely necessary. But, again, the legislators of the representa¬ 
tive state, although elected by the people, are not capable of making 
good laws for the working classes, but yet are able to make excellent 
laws for their own class, the middle class. And why? Because, as 
experience teaches us, the majority of every representative body con¬ 
sists of capitalists and their creatures, and members of the middle 
classes hostile to social progress. And even as the slaveholder is, by 
his very nature, incapable of making laws in the interest of his slaves, 
so the representative, being a capitalist, is incapable of ever framing 
laws in the interest of the workman. Representative democracy, 
though it be, comparatively speaking, a far better form of govern¬ 
ment than a monarchy or an aristocracy, is therefore not that polit¬ 
ical form within which the world of workers can attain its proper 
place and social questions can be solved. It might be more so if 
workingmen, and especially the peasantry, were always to send to the 
representative houses the most intelligent of their own class only; but, 
unfortunately, the experience of every country shows that this is 
done only in exceptional cases. As a rule, the people elect only mem¬ 
bers of the so-called higher orders, because the pernicious prejudice, 
an outgrowth of monarchical periods, leads men to believe that intel¬ 
lect alone can produce good laws, and consequently highly educated 
people are all that is wanted, while, in reality, interest is the deter¬ 
mining cause in matters of legislation. Add to this that the salary 
of a member of a legislative body and the traveling expenses paid to 
him are systematically fixed so low that for a member of the working 
classes it is economically impossible to fulfill the functions of a repre¬ 
sentative. 

The experience of democracy further teaches us that a people can 
be far more easily misled when there is a question of persons (such 
as elections for national and municipal councils) than where there is 
a question of voting on things (for instance, on laws); and this for 
the reason that it is immeasurably more difficult to probe the heart 
and character of a person than to go to the bottom of a thing, that is, 
the meaning and intention of a law; because it is more easy to judge 
S. Doc. 26-35 


32 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


whether a certain law is made in the interest of the working classes 
than whether a representative will always speak and vote in the 
interest of the people. 

Thus the touchstone by which the true gold is to be distinguished 
from the false is this: In a true, pure democracy or popular republic 
the people do not deal with persons only (elections of councilors), but 
also, and, indeed, above all, with things (laws); in false representative 
democracy or a middle-class republic, the people are only allowed to 
occujiy themselves with persons (election of representatives) who pro¬ 
ceed to make laws, and do so according to their own pleasure, profit, 
and prejudice. What the middle-class democrats want is that they 
alone are to govern the people for the benefit of the few. What the 
social democrats want is that the people should govern themselves, 
for the advantage of all, by taking legislation into their own hands 
and attending to it themselves, instead of allowing others to attend 
to it for them—that is, they want self-help to the fullest extent, and 
therefore in the domain of politics as well as elsewhere. 

The history of the world abundantly proves that the law is only a 
written expression of the interest of the lawgiver. To express the 
matter rather prosaically, one may say that the spirit of the law lies 
in the stomach of the lawgiver; the quintessence of laws is determined 
by the legislator’s money bag. This is all the more true when not 
only an individual, but a whole class is in question; not the dominion 
of one man, but the dominion of a class. Never yet has the misusing 
class emancipated the misused one, or spontaneously issued laws 
favorable to the latter. Only when the misused class have become 
masters in the State, and have taken legislation into their own hands, 
have the laws been made in their interest; that is, in the general 
interest, and then only could that class develop itself according to 
social needs. But what applies to the third estate, the bourgeoise, or 
middle class, only the more true when there is a question of the work¬ 
ing class, of the whole people. Just as the chemical germ, the inner, 
impelling power of the plant requires, in order to prosper, certain 
favorable soil and climate, so do the inner—and, so to speak, chem¬ 
ical—impulses of society, or social ideas, require, in order to unfold 
according to their nature, and to germinate in practical life a pecul¬ 
iar physical form of political life; that is, favorable political circum¬ 
stances. And these are the social democratic laws that could never 
have been made by princes or clergy (who already possess heaven here 
below), but can be made only by the working classes, who longingly 
wish for such a social transformation, an existence worthy of man in 
this world. 

No savior will ever redeem the people; they must redeem them¬ 
selves. . Thence proceeds the universal impulse of the nations of 
Europe toward emancipation. As a plant confined in a dark vault 
grows toward an aperture to get within reach of sunlight, so the 
working world of Europe struggles to escape from the close, dreary, 
and dull air of monarchy to the brightness of democracy. When 
once in a state of freedom, the people will be sure to grope their way 
instinctively into social redemption, feeling as it does every day its 
sufferings, which, notwithstanding, are giving it the necessary im¬ 
pulse to make itself acquainted with the cause of the evil and its 
remedy. 

In a real democracy—wherein direct legislation gives into its hands 
the instrument of perpetual motion, and the path for constant, peace¬ 
ful revolution lies open before it—the people will create new forms and 



33 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

laws, not according to preconceived social theories, but according to 
real wants, as they make themselves practically felt, and it will make 
its will prevail, as in Switzerland, by a stroke of the pen, and no 
longer by firearms and bloody revolutions, as in despotic States. 

The fear which has been expressed lest the ideal conquests of man¬ 
kind should, in the social-democratic state, be less attended to and 
less promoted than in monarchical or representative forms of the com¬ 
monwealth is an idle one, for history proves that the freer a nation is 
the more willing it is to make sacrifices to the cause of human culture, 
because it perceives that it is not the spirit-crushing, sterile faith, but 
only the spirit-raising, fertile science that can redeem the world. Nay, 
direct legislation by the people is, of all political forms, the one which is 
most favorable to the advancement of the education of the people, for 
everyone has an interest that his fellow-man, who has to cooperate in 
the making of the laws, should give his vote with conscious knowledge; 
and, above all, the so-called well-educated folks—to whom direct leg¬ 
islation by the people appears in the fancied shape of a ruin of all 
culture, of a modern irruption of barbarians—will have the greatest 
interest in the matter, and will readily lend a hand to giving the 
masses their schooling gratuitously, and, moreover, of as good a kind 
as possible, and so make the higher institutions of learning accessible 
to everyone that is capable. 

Besides, direct legislation is in itself a mighty engine of culture, 
seeing that the people are impelled, by their most immediate interests, 
to get information, lest they be, after all, bamboozled and misused by 
the men of so-called higher culture—which really is misculture—and 
their lawyer-like subtleties. Strangely enough these very men, the 
so-called well educated, who think direct legislation incapable of fos¬ 
tering the ideal wealth of mankind, and who, therefore, point to it as 
a retrogression—these very men, we say, can not sufficiently admire 
the ancient Greeks as the principal supporters of civilization in 
antiquity, and seem not to recollect that those who had made the 
greatest progress among the Greeks were the Athenians, who had 
direct legislation through the people—that is, through the free citi¬ 
zens—and that it was just this political form that contributed most 
essentially to the development of the Attic spirit, for with the sup¬ 
pression of this political form, with the dominion of strangers, the 
great minds disappeared. The ancient Germans, too, had direct leg¬ 
islation by the people in an organization similar to that which has been 
preserved through the course of many centuries in the Swiss “Lands- 
gemeinden ” of the forest cantons. The Germans did homage to the 
political principle that every man is to be a lawmaker, a military 
defender of the county, and a judge. 

Is it not strange that the Romans, so well versed in legislation, in 
war, and the administration of justice, could put all the nations of the 
Old World under the yoke except just this nation of Germans, though 
politically so disunited? And why? For this reason: That a popular 
legislation, a popular army, and a popular administration of justice 
had become flesh and blood in them, and had produced men against 
whose unalloyed strength the omnipotence of Rome was shattered. 

The ancient democracy which, by monarchical senselessness and 
ecclesiastical belief has been torn away from the people, must, by 
sense and science, be reconquered and fully developed in the spirit of 
our age. Everyone must again become a legislator, defender, and 
judge. He must periodically and in his own person exercise the 
rights and practice the duties appertaining to those dignities. Here 
S. Doc. 340-3 



34 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


no division of labor, no substitution of another person, is possible if 
we would not fall into servitude. If the people renounce the right to 
decide in the last resort on laws, if they hand over this duty to one 
man or a few men, then these will soon arrogate to themselves the 
privilege of making the laws only for themselves and against the gen¬ 
eral good. If the people abandon the defense of their rights and their 
country to a number of individuals, specially trained and set apart for 
this purpose, it creates a standing army, the most terrible tool in the 
hands of the governors, which is used against their rights and their 
freedom whenever the civilian sheep become restive under the monar¬ 
chical shears. If the people leave the right pronounce guilty or 
not guilty to permanent officials in the judgment seat, they run the 
risk of bureaucracy and lawyerdom springing up and growing, which 
judges us according to Heaven knows what kind of outlandish—say 
Roman—law, but surely not according to that law which has its basis 
in the convictions of the people as to what is right. 

Little Switzerland, penned in between mighty monarchies whose 
population is a hundred times larger, has, notwithstanding all perni¬ 
cious monarchical influences, notwithstanding the miasma of the 
theory of the right divine, still preserved to herself during centuries 
the old Teutonic health the ever true principles of those Germans 
before whom Rome, the enslaver of nations, trembled. At least she 
has preserved them in part, and especially with respect to the arming 
of the people; because the Swiss, a recognized defender of his coun¬ 
try, always had arms in his home, that is, had the right of voting 
armed; because the Swiss never would hear of a standing army. 
Therefore has his republic been preserved; therefore could the pop¬ 
ular spirit, whenever it was aroused, easily make a path for itself 
between intervening obstacles. 

At present the plan of direct legislation by the people makes way 
for itself with all that weight which a modern idea can receive by the 
historical recollection of things as they were in Germanic antiquity 
and in the heroic ages of the old Swiss Confederacy, when the people 
were asked and their sanction or rejection required, even in the larger 
cantons, with respect to such important questions as the making of 
peace and war, the establishment of the religious reformation, the 
imposition of taxes, and the like. 

Already the French constitution of 1793, which bears in its pream¬ 
ble the ever memorable declaration of the rights of man, laid down the 
principle of direct legislation by the people, though in a form less 
developed than the one in which we have it before us now a days. It 
does so in the form of a so-called veto, a certain number of voters hav¬ 
ing to raise an objection previous to a general vote being taken with 
respect to a proposed law. Article 53 of the French constitution of 
1793 says: 

“ The legislative body proposes laws” (propose des lois). 

Article 58. The bill is published and sent to all the municipalities 
(communes) of the Republic under the title of proposed law (loi 
proposee). 

Article 59. If, forty days having elapsed from sending out of the 
bill, no objections have been offered in half of the departments plus 
one by one-tenth of the primary assemblies regularly convoked, the 
bill has been accepted and becomes a law. 

Article 60. If such objections have been raised, the legislative body 
has to convoke the primary assemblies (for the purpose of voting oil 
the acceptance or the rejection of the law). 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


35 


Unfortunately this constitution could never be practically worked, 
the weight of difficulties with which the young republic had to struggle, 
both at home and abroad, not permitting a peaceful development. 
But, as in general in the life of nations, a good idea never gets lost 
and no step toward improvement is made quite in vain, these ideas 
of 1793 slumbered on in the depths of the heart of the French people. 
And when the second republic arose out of the revolution of Febru¬ 
ary, 1848, and the social-democrat, Rittinghausen, of Koln, in the 
years 1850-1852, scattered among the people the idea of direct legis¬ 
lation by the people, an idea whose further development and realiza¬ 
tion he has made the aim of his life, these thoughts at once kindled 
and a mighty movement was produced in men’s minds against the 
representative state, a movement which could not have failed to bear 
good fruit had not the beautiful blossom been nipped in the bud by 
the blasting coup d’etat of Bonaparte, the so-called saviour of society. 
For it is the fate of Csesarism that the grass withers wherever its foot 
falls. Out of that desert of reaction the seed was wafted to the only 
remaining republican oasis, the soil of Switzerland, where, in the 
healthy life of the people it has gradually struck deep roots. Now 
(1869) that Csesarism is decaying and a new breath of spring is per¬ 
vading the nations, the seed that has been sown is shooting up every¬ 
where from the soil, fresh and healthy, like a real crop of thought, 
and the idea of direct legislation by the people, germinating so long, 
takes practical shape in the form of a political institution. 

Of course, direct legislation can not be exercised in larger common¬ 
wealths in the same mode in which it was once practiced in the pub¬ 
lic square at Athens, in the oak forests of ancient Germany, and is 
still carried out in those cantons of Switzerland which possess the 
“Landsgemeinde.” The essence—that is, the participation in the 
making of the laws—must continue; only the form in which the par¬ 
ticipation takes place must disappear and give way to quite a differ¬ 
ent one, because the circumstances have become different, have 
become enlarged, and will no longer allow the whole people to assem¬ 
ble in one spot for the purpose of law making. Our century, how¬ 
ever, with its magnificent inventions, has, among other things, pre¬ 
pared and rendered democracy possible on a large scale by nearly 
annihilating distance, so that an extensive body of people are so 
connected by steam and telegraph as to allow the existence and move¬ 
ment of any single limb to be at once felt everywhere, and to be 
received into the consciousness of all the member. Therefore the 
old form, though venerable on account of its antiquity, must be 
given up. 

The show of hands at the “Landsgemeinde ”—that is, open voting- 
must now, when everyone can write, be replaced by secret voting 
{the ballot) in the municipalities, by means of electoral urns, which, 
on the Sunday appointed for voting, stand open for every citizen to 
throw in his voting paper at such time as may be convenient to him. 
By this plan the influence of capital, with its improper suggestion s by 
employers, whereby open voting is but too frequently impaired, is 
completely put an end to. The workman, under a system of secret 
voting, will be able to give a much freer expression to his wishes than 
if he is subject to intimidation, which is too frequently the case with 
a system of open voting, where he has often to pay by social disad¬ 
vantages (loss of work, etc.) for the free utterance of his political con¬ 
victions. 


36 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

The debate at the open-air meeting, the legal assembly of the land, 
or “Landsgemeinde,” will now, when everyone can read, be replaced 
by printed explanations, to be given with the bills, by discussion in 
the newspapers, and by free meetings whenever the importance of the 
proposed laws call for such deliberation. 

This faculty of bringing a motion before the “ landsgemeinde ” will, 
in more extensive commonwealths, be provided for by a differently 
organized popular initiative (right of the people to make proposals). 
It is proposed, with this aim, that any fraction of the people—say one- 
tenth or one-twentietli (5 per cent), as the constitution may determine— 
should be able (by a committee to be elected for the purpose) to for¬ 
mulate its desire in the shape of a bill, and ultimately to bring it 
before the whole people for decision by popular vote. 

Direct legislation by the people consists, then, in two essential ele¬ 
ments—the one of impulse and initiative, the other of determination 
and decision. Whence we obtain— 

1. The right of the people to propose laws, otherwise called popular 
initiative. 

2. The popular vote on the laws, also called referendum. 

Between these two elements the functions of a regular organic body 

are exercised by the council or parliament, which is, indeed, no longer 
to be a lawmaking body, but merely a law-proposing one—that is, no 
longer a lawgiver, but simply a giver of counsel, which counsel the 
people may adopt or not. 

The council is thus exposed to a cross fire which is calculated to 
keep it from falling asleep. If the representatives propose bad laws 
(if they are guilty of sins of commission), these laws will be rejected 
by the popular vote or referendum. If the parliaments do not wish 
to propose good laws (if they are guilty of sins of commission), the 
popular initiative steps in to make its own proposals. 

Taking as an instance the canton of Zurich, the popular initiative 
can manifest itself in two ways: 

1. If the sixteenth part of the people—in Zurich 5,000 initiants out 
of 80,000 possessors of votes—make a proposal, it must be submitted 
to the vote of the people. 

2. If a single individual, or a society or a board, makes a proposal 
which is approved of by one-third of the cantonal council, such pro¬ 
posal must likewise be voted upon by the people. 

Thus there are in the canton of Zurich three parties equally entitled 
to bring proposals before the people for its vote, viz: 

1. Five thousand initiants. 

2. Any individual gaining the assent of one-third of the council of 
the canton. (A kind of minority representation.) 

3. The cantonal council itself (consisting of about 220 members). 

Only the council is the ordinary organ. The two others are extraor¬ 
dinary organs, whose activity only begins when the ordinary one 
proves inert. In order to render this matter still more plain we here 
insert those articles of the constitution of Zurich which deal with the 
popular initiative and the referendum. The constitution begins with 
these words: “The people of the Canton of Zurich give themselves, 
in virtue of their sovereign right to determine their own destinies, the 
following constitution,” and in Chapter III, Legislation of the People, 
we read as follows: 

Art. 28. The people, with the cooperation of the cantonal council, exercise the 
powers of legislation. 


37 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

A.— Right of the people to make proposals. 

Art. 29. The right of making proposals which entitled to vote possess (initia¬ 
tive) comprises the demand of the passing, repeal, or alteration of a law, or of any 
such resolution as is not, by the terms of the constitution, expressly reserved to 
the competency of the cantonal council. Demands of this kind may be made 
either in the form of simply calling attention to the matter in question or by offer¬ 
ing the details of a bill; and in either case motives are to be adduced for the 
alteration proposed. 

If a single individual or a constituted authority makes such a demand, and it is 
supported by one-third of the members of the cantonal council, the question 
must be laid before the people for decision. The right of personally advocating 
in the cantonal council the alteration proposed is granted to the individual having 
made the demand or to the deputy of the constituted authority moving in the mat¬ 
ter, provided that twenty-five members of the cantonal council support the request 
cf this personal advocacy of the motion. 

If 5,000 persons having the right to vote make a demand of the kind aforesaid, 
or if a number of municipal meetings in which at least 5,000 persons entitled to 
vote have pronounced in the favor of such a demand, the decision of the people is to 
be equally taken, if the cantonal council does not consent to the demand. Any 
demand of this kind having been handed in early enough, the matter is to be placed 
before the people for their decision, at the latest at the second subsequent regular 
taking of votes. 

The demand or bill has in every case to be submitted, before the vote of the peo¬ 
ple, to the cantonal council, for them to give an opinion in the form of a resolution. 

In any case in which a bill proceeding from popular initiative is submitted to 
the vote the cantonal council, besides giving its opinion, may place before the peo¬ 
ple a modified bill for decision between the two. 

B. — Vote of the people. 

Art. 30. Twice every year, in spring and in autumn, the vote of the people takes 
place on the legislatory acts of the cantonal council (referendum). In urgent 
cases the council can order an extraordinary taking of votes. There are to be 
submitted to the popular vote: 

1. All alterations of the constitution, laws, and concordants. 

2. Those resolutions of the cantonal council which that council is not competent 
to pass definitely (vide Art. 31). 

Any resolutions which the council may wish to put to the popular vote. 

The cantonal council is entitled, on submitting a law or resolution, to order, 
beside the vote on the totality of the proposal, exceptionally, a vote on single 
points of it. 

The vote takes place by means of the ballot boxes in the municipalities. Partici¬ 
pation in it is a citizen's duty, binding on all. 

The vote can only be by affirmation or negation. 

The absolute majority of affirming or negativing vote is decisive. 

The cantonal council is not entitled to give provisional validity to any laws or 
resolutions requiring the popular vote previous to such vote being taken. 

All proposals to be submitted to the popular vote are to be published and handed 
to the voters at least thirty days before the taking of the vote. 

C. — Cantonal council. 

Art. 31. The competency of the cantonal council extends to— 

1. The discussion and resolution of all questions which are to be submitted to 
the popular vote. 

2 . 

3. 

4. The control of the entire administration of the country and of the action of 
the courts of law. 

5. The final decision on new expenses, occurring but once and for a definite pur¬ 
pose, such expenses as do not go beyond 250,000 francs, as well as on annually 
recurring expenses less than the amount of 20,000 francs. 

6. The fixing of the annual estimates of ways and means and of expenses in 
accordance with existing laws and resolutions. 

7. The audit of public accounts. 

We should like to affirm that the above articles have in every case 
hit the mark exactly, and that they could be considered as an inf alii- 


38 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

ble scheme, so to speak. Variety of individual views will here and 
there find shortcomings. Yet these articles, as a first serious attempt 
at realizing the idea, deserve in so far every attention, as they offer a 
new form of commonwealth—a form proceeding from the discussions 
and votes of an entire people, a form wherein the community may 
grow and unfold itself without let or hindrance, according to its pro¬ 
gressive wants. 

We are firmly convinced that direct legislation by the people, 
through the institutions of the popular initiative and the popular vote 
on laws, can and must be introduced into the largest States (United 
States, England, Germany, France, etc.), and that without these politi¬ 
cal institutions social questions can not be solved. 


Appendix No. 8. 

THE NEW TIME SYMPOSIUMS AND ARGUMENTS. 

[The New Time is a monthly published in Chicago.] 

No. 1.— July , 1897. 

SOME DIRECT-LEGISLATION ADVOCATES AND THEIR OPINIONS. 

Miss Frances E. Willard, president World’s Woman’s Christian 
Temperance Union: 

I believe in direct legislation, and think it is so greatly needed that language 
can not express the dire necessity under which we find ourselves. The reign of 
the people is the one thing that my soul desires to see. The reign of the politician 
is a public ignominy. I also believe that direct legislation is certain to become 
the great political issue in the immediate future. The people are being educated 
by events. They are coming to see that there is no hope for reform under the 
existing system of voting. It is the duty of every citizen to carefully study this 
great question. 

Hon. Thomas McEwan, jr., Congressman from New Jersey (Regu¬ 
lar Republican): 

Whether for weal or woe, I am now inseparably connected with direct legisla¬ 
tion. The more I deliberate on it the more I am convinced that in it and through 
it will be found a solution of almost all the disturbing questions of State and nation; 
that its elasticity will be such that through its operation the important questions 
of the future will be solved with measurable speed and unquestionable certainty. 

Corruption has overthrown every republic that ever existed before our own, 
except Switzerland, where they have direct legislation. It will abolish the dom¬ 
ination of bosses and corporations. These threaten the durability of our nation, 
as they are sources of corruption. Direct legislation will give greater freedom to 
the voter from the political mastership of these malign influences. He will have 
to think and act for himself. I firmly believe that the United States Government 
will, when its adaptability shall have been shown in some States, adopt direct 
legislation. 

Hon. R. F. Pettigrew, United States Senator from South Dakota 
(Free-Silver Republican): 

I am earnestly in favor of the referendum in legislation. The people are more 
to be trusted than their representatives. It is absolutely essential to the preser¬ 
vation of free institutions in this country that the power of the lobby, which 
infests our State and national capitals, should be destroyed; and the most effect¬ 
ive method of destroying this lobby and driving it from power is the initiative and 
referendum, by which the people pass upon all matters of legislation. I was very 
much pleased by the action of my own State last winter in this direction (passing 
a direct legislative constitutional amendment), and I feel certain that the people 
will ratify that action at the polls. I am also much pleased with the progress 
made. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


39 


Dr. George A. Gates, president Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa: 

I am glad to say that I have more confidence in what is known as direct legisla¬ 
tion as a means of aj)plyiiig the principles of a true democracy to our public affairs 
than in any other movement at present before the public. Our American democ¬ 
racy is very democratic in form, but as matters now stand very undemocratic in 
fact. There is no country in the world which is so exploited by all sorts of enter¬ 
prises, political, industrial, commercial, as America. Certain" governments and 
certain forms of government may be trusted largely to run themselves. Not so a 
democracy. A democracy must be attended to or it will go to the dogs. The 
only ones ultimately who can attend to it are all the people. This fact has not 
yet been discovered by all the people, but the principles of direct legislation seem 
admirably adapted to"help us to discover it. 

Hon. .T. R. Rogers, governor of Washington (Populist): 

I am in favor of direct legislation. The people suffer under too many laws. 
Laws should be fewer in number, more simple, and should be referred to the peo¬ 
ple, as is now done in the matter of constitutional amendments. This is not only 
practical, but it has become imperative. The people are helpless against the brib¬ 
ery which is resorted to by the great corporations and interests, which fear the 
people and deal with their corrupt officials. 

FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL ARGUMENT FOR DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, president National Direct Legislation League.] 

Text: When a form of government is put into operation in which interest coin¬ 
cides with justice, then rapidity of progress is only dependent on the intelligence, 
energy, and experience of governors and governed. 

When a form of government is put into operation in which interest 
coincides with justice, then rapidity of progress is only dependent on 
the intelligence, energy, and experience of governors and governed. 

If interest does not coincide with justice, such is the frailty of 
human nature that interest in time will triumph, and a government 
founded on injustice will ensue. Such a government, no matter how 
splendid and powerful it may seem, bears within it the seeds of decay 
and death. Such was Spain at the height of her glory, when the 
empire of Charles V exceeded that of Rome. It is now crumbling 
and its people retrograding. 

At times the innate righteousness of some ruler temporarily stops 
or even reverses the progress toward injustice, but with his death or 
apostasy the inevitable "trend begins again. Such was the reign of 
the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. 

At times the framework of the government may have been so firmly 
knit that it requires a long period, perchance centuries, for the injus¬ 
tice to filter down to the masses, but when that happens the founda¬ 
tions of society are gone and dissolution follows. There are centuries 
in the early history of the Roman Empire when, while the heads were 
corrupt and unjust, the masses were governed in a stable and rela¬ 
tively just manner. 

A government founded on injustice can not permanently endure. 
Justice gives stability and permanency to a government. Interest is 
the motive or directing power. If the two do not coincide, interest 
directs it toward injustice, the government becomes unstable, and 
finally something topples it over and anarchy ensues. But where 
interest—motive power—and justice—stability—coincide progress is 
only dependent on the intelligence, energy, and experience of gover¬ 
nors and governed. 

From this it follows that the supremely important question is, In 
what form of government does interest most nearly coincide with 


40 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

justice? Is it in a monarchy, where one man rules? No; because the 
interest of the one man does not always or even often coincide with 
justice to the subjects. Its advocates put out the doctrine of the 
divine right of kings to rule. Before it became too transparently 
absurd these rulers used to claim that they were descended from the 
gods and of a finer and different breed from the rest of mankind, who 
should serve and obey them. Such governments in time become 
either more unjust and decay or less monarchical and advance. 

Does justice coincide with interest in an aristocracy, the govern¬ 
ment by a few? No; because it is the tendency of the few to use the 
powers for their own interest, even unjustly. They try to justify this 
by calling themselves aristocrats or the best people, implying that the 
rest of the people should serve them. Hence such governments either 
become more and more unjust and retrograde or else they widen the 
governing body, become less aristocratic and unjust and more stable. 
The latter is largely the history of the English people. 

Does justice coincide with interest in a representative government 
where the people choose, for longer or shorter periods, the rulers to 
govern them? The theory is that they choose the wisest and most 
trustworthy and that these officers, when chosen, retain and exercise 
these qualities. 

At first, in this country, the answer seemed to be yes. The repre¬ 
sentatives, elected frequently from a homogeneous and nearly equally 
wealthy people, and having comparatively few and simple problems 
to decide, responded readily to the popular will, and the beginning of 
a just and rapidly progressive government was made. 

But as its functions became more and more varied and important 
and as the wealth of the country increased and concentrated, it soon 
became evident that the interest of the ruler after election did not 
coincide with justice to all the people. It either was or could easily 
be made the interest of a class, the corporations or organized wealth 
owners. The tradition of an ideal legislator for a time hindered the 
rapid domination of class interest and injustice. The enlarged pub¬ 
licity of the newspapers and modern life partially stopped it. The fre¬ 
quency of elections retire the most gross and open corruptionists, but 
not the subtlest and most dangerous. This tradition is well-nigh 
dead and the legislators have thrown up a great cloud of laws and 
vastly increased the complexity of public business that they may hide 
themselves from this publicity. 

Because of this corruption, we are fast progressing toward injustice 
and instability in our Government. The evidence of this is the 
recent civil wars at Homestead, Chicago, Coeur d’Alene, etc. Smoth¬ 
ering these is not curing the disease, but sitting on the safety valve. 
The famous French scholar, LeClerc, an impartial observer, says: 

On one side the revolutionary masses blinded by anger, and on the other the 
most corrupting and monstrous evolution of millionaires and monopolists. 

The underlying reason is that justice does not coincide with inter¬ 
est in our Government, and so interest directs and our Government 
becomes unjust. 

Representative government has been tested on these shores for over 
a century. In many cases it is better than the older forms. It has 
been acclaimed a finality. But it has borne its legitimate fruits, and 
they are the dead sea apples of corruption and insidious injustice. 
Representative government is a failure. 

If we pursue the path we now are treading, a strong government, 


41 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

buttressed by force, is necessary, and that will be followed by anar¬ 
chy, death, retrogression. 

Interest coincides with justice, not in government, but in self-gov¬ 
ernment; not in any form of rule by others, but in pure democracy, 
where the people rule themselves. Where the people vote or are able 
to vote on every law by which they are to be governed, then interest 
coincides with justice. Where each man has to decide both what is 
due from himself to others and to the state and also to himself from 
others and from the state, then it is to his interest that that deci¬ 
sion should be just. He may err through lack of understanding, but 
experience will remedy that. He will not err because it is to his in¬ 
terest to oppress others, because the others will have an equal voice 
with him in making the laws. 

When true democracy or self-government is achieved, progress will 
only depend on the intelligence, energy, and experience of the gov¬ 
ernors, who are also the governed. By uniting the two classes, gov¬ 
ernors and governed, and making them the same, we make interest 
coincide with justice. These two can not coincide as long as the gov¬ 
ernors are not the same as the governed. 

Law is largely a matter of definitions—definitions of the rights and 
duties of each to the other and to the state. In the manipulation of 
these definitions lurks much of the injustice of our present Govern¬ 
ment. If the making of these definitions is left to one man, a king, 
or to a few men chosen by birth, an hereditary aristocracy, these 
definitions are made in the interest of the makers. If it is left with¬ 
out check to a few men elected by the people, a representative gov¬ 
ernment, then these definitions are made in the interest of those men 
who persuade or purchase a majority of the representatives. The 
first is ofttimes an honest oppression, as it is very easy for a man or 
a set of men to persuade themselves that they are better than their 
neighbors and hence entitled to more consideration. The latter is 
always dishonest and adds that evil to its oppression and injustice. 

Leave the final decision on these definitions to the whole people and 
each man or class in the community will not ask less than justice for 
themselves and the whole community will be unwilling to grant more 
than justice to any part of it. Interest coincides with justice. 

This can be attained through direct legislation, the initiative and 
referendum. By the initiative a reasonable minority of the voters, 
say 5 per cent, can propose any measure as a law, and this proposal, 
after discussion and amendment, both in the legislative halls and 
before the people, goes to a vote of the people. By the referendum, 
any law passed by the legislative council, when petitioned for by a 
reasonable minority of the voters, say 5 per cent, is referred to a vote 
of the people interested for acceptance or rejection. 

Transcending and embracing all questions of the finance, the tariff, 
taxation, etc., is this fundamental one, Shall the people rule or be 
ruled? Shall organized wealth, with its subtle corruption, govern the 
people or shall the people govern themselves through direct legisla¬ 
tion? Other questions are but a part of this great question. Let us 
by direct legislation make justice coincide with interest in our gov¬ 
ernment, thus gaining stability and progress. 

Settle it and the solution of all other questions will follow in time 
and with experience. Leave it unsettled and other reforms can only 
be attained by entangling alliances and concessions which render a 
triumph of the reform largely nugatory. Meantime a rapid and 
largely unrecorded progress toward injustice will make this funda¬ 
mental reform more difficult. 


42 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

No. 2.— August, 1897. 

THE FUNDAMENTAL RELIGIOUS ARGUMENT FOR DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, president National Direct Legislation League.] 

Christ’s valuation of the other man, His saving of all men of every grade by His 
own sacrificial life and its issue, His creation of the indubitable equality of men 
before His cross on Calvary—these are the basis of triumphal democracy. (Dr. 
F. W. Gunsaulus, of Chicago.) 

Christianity can realize itself in a social order only though democracy, and 
democracy can realize itself only through the social forces of Christianity. A pure 
social democracy is the political fulfillment of Christianity—the political organi¬ 
zation of Christ’s law of love. (Prof. George D. Herron.) 

What has politics got to do with religion or religion wdtli politics? 
is the question at once asked on reading the above title. All prob¬ 
lems—social, economic, industrial, and political—are at their base 
religious; not religious in the sense of ecclesiastical or as connected 
with any church, creed, or sect, but religious in the broad, general 
principles whose application will furnish their solution. The most 
damnable heresy of modern times is the division of the sacred from 
the secular. All things are sacred; none are secular. Christ, when 
on earth, claimed a universal dominion. He said, “All things are 
mine.” He taught us to pray, “ Thy kingdom come, Thj^ will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven.” He came here to establish a kingdom on 
this earth. In Revelations that kingdom is portrayed as the new 
Jerusalem, a city, a social organization, descending onto this earth. 

You may believe any creed or none, be a member of any sect or 
outside all, may think the church the most beneficent institution of 
all the ages or the hidebound curse of our time, yet this argument, 
going back to the fundamental religious principles, to the words of 
the great social and political reformer, can not but interest and per¬ 
suade you. 

First, what are the principles at the basis of the Christian religion? 
Christ has condensed them into two in His summary of the Ten Com¬ 
mandments, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength, 
and thy neighbor as thyself.” The first is love to God, and implies 
the fatherhood of God; the second is love to man, and implies the 
brotherhood of man. The fatherhood of God is personal, individual; 
it is our relation to God; it is not a principle to apply to our relations 
to each other. Its correlative and equal—the brotherhood of man—is 
social, and governs our relations to each other. It implies equality 
not necessarily of capacities, but of conditions and opportunities. 
Before the cross of Christ all men are equal. In the flood of His all- 
embracing love there are no distinctions of rich and poor, educated 
and ignorant, well-born and humble, weak and strong. As St. Peter 
said, “ Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.” All 
are equally children of the Father; all are equally brethren. 

The early church, under the fresh inspiration of Christ’s recent 
presence, had all things in common. Until the early impetus had 
waned, it was a complete and pure democracy. Our present church 
has striven, with many backslidings, many errors, to recognize this 
equality of man before God and among his fellows. As the ages go 
by we see slavery abolished, serfdom done away with, and the spread 
of equality of conditions more rapid where Christianity is most domi¬ 
nant; less rapid elsewhere. In some denominations, such as the Con¬ 
gregational, the government is purely democratic. The principles 


43 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

which must be embodied into our political institutions are brother¬ 
hood and equality. We have already partially embodied them in our 
political system. Outside of the few limitations as to imbecility, 
criminality, and sex, the rich and the poor, the learned and the igno¬ 
rant, are on complete equality in the value of their votes. This does 
not say that they are on an equality regarding their political influ¬ 
ence, but regarding their political action in voting. And nominally 
all are equal before the law. 

Secondly, what is the method of religion? Look first at Christ’s 
method. He took twelve men, and they were a great deal more men 
when He got through with them than when He began. Did He lay 
down minute rules regulating in an orderly, educational manner all 
the details of their lives while they were training? Many of the great 
religious teachers, both before and since, have done this. He did 
not. It is difficult to point to a place where He prohibited or enjoined 
specific actions. He laid down great principles and left His followers 
to apply them or not. If they had clear grasp of the truth and 
strength, they made these principles their own and applied them 
fully. If they were weak or imperfectly grasped the truth they 
applied them weakly. In either case they learned by thus interpret¬ 
ing the truth into action. They were prevented thereby from losing 
the truth completely when the performance had degenerated into a 
senseless iteration, when the husk is grasped and the kernel lost. 

He then drew men out, made more of them. Did he tell the people 
to stone the woman taken in adultery, as was the law, or to let her 
go as mercy indicated? No; He said, “Let him that is without sin 
cast the first stone,” thus stating a great principle. His hearers 
applied it, and they slunk off; one by one. He forced His hearers to 
choose. 

This is God’s method in the Old Testament. How often do the 
prophets and lawmakers say, “If ye will walk in my statutes,” etc., 
or, ‘ ‘ Choose this day whom ye will serve. ” This happens all through 
Old Testament history. 

It is His method in nature and life. Man is free to choose. If he 
chooses wrong he suffers and learns by that suffering. God makes 
men thereby. The same is true of a nation. The religious method 
is by perfect freedom of choice, followed inevitably by the effects of 
that choice—good, if the choice is wise; painful, if not. 

How can this method and principle be carried into politics? By 
ruling men? No. It does not make any difference whether the ruler 
is a king, an aristocracy, or a plutocracy, and in some respects the 
last is the worst. There is no equality under them for the people 
nor any chance for them to choose. It can only be obtained in 
self-government, or a government by the people. No people can be 
self-governed who are denied the right to vote yes and no on every 
law by which they are to be governed. This is direct legislation by 
the initiative and referendum, by which a suitable minority of the peo¬ 
ple can propose any law, and can cause any law, either passed by the 
law-drafting body or emanating from the people, to go to a vote of the 
people where the people, each with an equal vote, will choose how they 
are to be governed. This is self-government and equality. It is 
carrying into the highest, most far-reaching, grandest side of politics, 
the fundamental religious principles of brotherhood and equality and 
the fundamental religious method of choosing. 

Furthermore, we are called “sons of God,” “heirs and joint heirs 
with Christ.” Man partakes of the divine. He is divine. And that 


44 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


divinity resides not perhaps as fully and as strongly, but it resides in 
the most degraded criminal as well as the loftiest spiritual teacher; 
and as the whole is greater than any of its parts so you will find that 
the will of the people, the great common people of whom Lincoln said 
“God must have loved them, He made so man y of them,” when it is 
calmly, deliberately, and fully stated, when it rises above the din of 
fighting factions, above the clamor of contending partisans, above the 
clash of vested interests, above the fool clangor of demagogues, and 
the cries of blind leaders and the shouts of fanatics, comes nearer to 
the voice of God in its passion for righteousness, its appreciation of 
the truth, and the finality o*f its power than any other known thing 
on this struggling earth. 

“History,” says Herron, “is the progressive disclosure of the self- 
government of man as the providential design.” Direct legislation is 
the next step in the self-government of society and in the spread of 
the kingdom of God in politics. 

No. 3 .—October, 1897. 

SYMPOSIUM ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, 
with a membership of more than a million trade unionists: 

I have full faith in the people. The safety of the future as well as the interests 
of the present can safely be intrusted in their hands. The whole are more honest, 
more intelligent, than the few. We must soon choose whether we are to have an 
oligarchy or a democracy. All lovers of the human family, all who earnestly 
strive for political reform, economic justice, and social enfranchisement, must 
range themselves on the side of organized labor in this demand for direct legis¬ 
lation. 

Hon. Marion Butler, United States Senator from North Carolina: 

Do I believe in direct legislation? Let the facts speak. I have been trying to 
pass a resolution in the United States Senate for the appointment of a special 
committee to consider the feasibility of applying it to Federal legislation, but there 
is considerable prejudice in the Senate against creating special committees, par¬ 
ticularly when the Senate is not especially friendly to the object. The cry is 
always raised that a regular committee of the Senate should make such investiga¬ 
tions. I have never been able to get my previous resolution reported from the 
Committee on Contingent Expenses. Recently I have made a new move by intro¬ 
ducing a new resolution instructing the Committee on Privileges and Elections 
to make this investigation, i succeeded in getting it to a vote, and it passed on 
June 23. 

Rev. B. Fay Mills, the eloquent pulpit orator and Christian Socialist: 

I will hold up both hands for the initiative and referendum. I sometimes think 
I agree with those who feel that this should be the next step in social reconstruc¬ 
tion, as I certainly believe it will be productive of all others. 

I believe the revelation of God is in the conscience of all the people. Mazzini 
says that whoever makes a religion out of democracy will save the world. 

Lord Salisbury, the English premier and leader of the Conservative 
party of Great Britain: 

I believe that nothing could oppose a bulwark to popular passion except an 
arrangement for deliberate and careful reference of any matter in dispute to the 
votes of the people, like the arrangements existing in the United States and Switz¬ 
erland. 

To this may be added the following significant statement from the 
editor of London’s greatest newspaper: 

At the election of 1895 the referendum occupied a certain place. The official 
leaflet issued from the central Conservative offices to explain and enumerate the 
items of the party programme placed the referendum third on the list of Unionist 



45 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

aims. A firm imperial policy comes first. Then follows a strong navy. Third 
com es the referendum. The referendum may thus fairly he said to have emerged 
from obscurity. (J. St. Loe Strachey, editor of the London Spectator.) 

Samuel E. Moffett, formerly editor of the San Francisco Examiner, 
now one of the editors of the New York Journal: 

Direct legislation is no longer merely desirable; it has become essential to the 
safety, if not to the continued existence, of the Republic. A few years ago the 
representative system was in decay—now it is dead. Then we had many bad rep¬ 
resentatives—now we have substantially no representatives, good or bad, at all. 
This is literally true of State legislatures and city councils, and it is becoming 
increasingly true of Congress. The f ormer congeries of representatives—some hon¬ 
est and some corrupt, each acting from his individual motives—has given way to 
the boss, who owns the legislative power in bulk, and takes contracts to “jam 
through” any measure whose sponsors are willing to pay his price. The people, 
enraged by successive betrayals, and realizing the hopeless folly of turning out 
one boss to make room for another, are in a dangerous mood. The only way of 
keeping their rising indignation within the bounds of order is to give them some 
peaceful method of controlling their own affairs. That is what direct legislation 
would do. 


THE SOCIAL ARGUMENT FOR DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, president National Direct Legislation League.] 

A majority held in restraint by constitutional check and limitation, and always 
changed easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the 
only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to 
anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a per¬ 
manent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible. So that, rejecting the majority 
principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. (Abraham Lin¬ 
coln in his first inaugural.) 

Not the centralization but the diffusion of power is the safety of the present; it 
is also the lesson of history and the divine method. (Prof. George D. Herron.) 

The welfare of the whole instead of that of a part were henceforth to be the 
paramount purpose of the social order. Dimly your nineteenth-century philoso¬ 
phers seem to have perceived that the general diffusion of intelligence introduced 
a very important force into the social evolution, but they were wall-eyed in their 
failure to see the certainty with which it foreshadowed a complete revolution of 
the economic basis of society in the interest of the whole body of the people as 
opposed to class interest or partial interest of every sort. The first effect was the 
democratic movement by which personal and class rule in political matters was 
overthrown in the name of the supreme interest and authority of the people. It 
is astonishing that there should have been any intelligent persons who did not per¬ 
ceive that political democracy was but the pioneer corps of economic democracy 
clearing the way and providing the instrumentality for the substantial part of the 
programme—the equalization of the distribution of work and wealth. (Edward 
Bellamy.) 

The methods of socialism are coordination, cooperation, and com¬ 
bination to get the best results from the forces latent in nature, man, 
and society. Its aim is equality, not of character or capacities, but 
of conditions and opportunities. Its spirit is brotherhood. The adop¬ 
tion of the method without the aim and spirit will be disastrous to any 
society Avhich attempts it. We are on the verge of such adoption 
now. 

The whole trend of our times is toward socialism. Manufactures 
are to-day almost completely socialized under private control, and 
they are becoming more fully socialized every day. That is, fewer 
and fewer men are working directly for themselves, but they are 
working in combination with others, sometimes thousands, for a com¬ 
mon end. The method is the method of socialism; the aim is not 
equality of opportunity, but the benefit of the few. The aim is not 
the aim of socialism. The spirit is not the spirit of brotherhood, but 
that of greed. There is a radical discord between the method and 


46 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


the aim and spirit, and this produces strikes, lockouts, and labor 
wars, and it can not be remedied till the method and the aim and 
spirit work in unison. It looks as though the method had been irrev¬ 
ocably adopted; if so, it will in time compel the adoption of an aim 
and spirit in harmony with it. 

As an illustration, take the making of shoes. At one time the cob¬ 
bler used to buy his leather from his friend, the farmer, and make 
the shoes and sell them to his neighbors. Now great factories dot the 
country where shoes are made at less than a tenth of the former 
labor cost and which employ men by the hundreds. The individual 
shoemaker is gone. This is shown by the change in the meaning of 
the word “cobbler,” which now means a repairer or mender. The 
socialized shoemaker is here. 

Agriculture is not so fully socialized, but it is rapidly becoming so. 
See the bonanza wheat farms*and the syndicate cattle ranches of the 
West and the creameries which within the last decade have sprung 
up on the New England hillsides. 

Prospecting is occasionally the work of individuals, but mining on 
any scale is socialized, though still under private control. 

The great transportation systems of our country are completely 
socialized under private control; and the corporations in control 
are growing fewer every day. Less than fifty corporations control 
three-fourths of the railway mileage of the United States. The tele¬ 
graph system is under one unified control. The telephone systems 
are under one control in each locality, and these companies are being 
bound together into one huge system. They are like snowballs, 
starting small, but, rolling downhill, they grow larger and larger, and 
the larger they grow the more momentum do they get. 

In actual distribution to the people, look how the department stores 
are swallowing up the small individual merchant. Fight it as he does, 
the merchant finds his profits decreasing. He must either increase 
his business or decrease his expenses or go to the wall. This means 
fewer and larger stores. Socialism in the method of distribution, 
though not yet in its aim and spirit, is being substituted for individu¬ 
alism in method and spirit. 

In many organizations manufacturing and distributing are united 
and socialized, though still for private benefit. Such are ,the Standard 
Oil Company, the Sugar Trust, the American School Book Company, 
etc. These are more complete application of the method of socialism, 
as they unite functions, and hence more dangerous if not democra¬ 
tized and the aim made harmonious with the method. 

When our national-bank system was established nearly forty years 
ago it was easy for anyone with a small amount of capital to go into 
it. Soon the field became filled Now it is completely filled and very 
difficult to successfully start a new bank. The banks are drawing 
together with their different organizations, their papers, and columns 
in the daily press. They are becoming a power in the land by cooper¬ 
ation and combination. They are striving for legislation to permit 
the establishment of branch banks, which will mean the freezing out 
of the smaller banks and the establishment of the larger ones in their 
places, or fewer banks and easier to combine. They are grasping for 
a complete control of the currency of the country. ‘ This would be a 
benefit if the aim was the common and not private good. 

They are like a gigantic monster in some dark cavern of the sea, 
slowly, silently, surely wrapping its tentacles around every center of 
commerce and industry, that it may completely control the exchanges 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


47 


of the country through the currency, which is the country’s lifeblood. 
Already it is sucking the vitality of the land for the benefit of the 
few; the method of socialism without its spirit and aim. 

This same trend toward socialism is seen in all our forms of gov¬ 
ernment. The local governments are making better roads, better 
schools, more free libraries, more of everything that makes life enjoy¬ 
able. The cities are giving much more attention to waterworks, pav¬ 
ing, lighting, markets, parks, street cars, etc. In the sphere of the 
State we are getting better courts, prisons, asylums, colleges, forestry, 
river improvements, etc. In the National Government we see the ex¬ 
tension and socialization of function in such things as the weather 
bureau, patent system, census and labor statistics, military, and many 
other matters. In local affairs, these new or enlarged functions are 
almost completely democratized or under the control of the people, 
and this is true in a large though less degree of the more centralized 
functions. Yet while this movement is rising as irresistibly as the 
coming in of the tide, there is a growing and very dangerous tendency 
to turn it into special channels and draw it off from benefiting the 
whole. This is separating the method of socialism from its aim and 
spirit. 

We see this same trend toward at least the methods of socialism in 
all our social life; in the great increase in numbers, power, and func¬ 
tions of voluntary organizations. These reach from religious, chari¬ 
table, and educational to such purely business schemes as cooperative 
creameries and building-and-loan associations. 

It would be very easy to extend this list, showing the whole trend of 
our modern life toward socialism, but enough has been given to show 
this almost universal and powerful tendency. 

As civilization progresses, both the dangers and the benefits which 
may flow from an advance are larger than any that could happen 
under the less advanced stage. A keen ax will chop more wood than 
a dull one, but it will also cut deeper into the body if the blow is mis¬ 
directed. The dangers or benefits which may result from socialism 
will be greater than from any past social order, and whether these are 
dangers or benefits depends on its use or abuse. 

There are two great dangers about socialism. The first is the tend¬ 
ency of all combination and cooperation to centralize, to draw people 
together into great congested cities, with their great benefits and ter¬ 
rible dangers to the race from overcrowding, to heap up all the treas¬ 
ures of wealth and art and commerce in a few central entrepots, to 
there display them gorgeously, either for ostentation or for purchase, 
while near-by masses of people are starving. If the evils of this tend¬ 
ency are unchecked, one of two things will follow. 

The earth revolves around the sun, and its rapid movement over¬ 
comes the drawing power of gravity in the sun enough to keep it 
smoothly swinging in its orbit. Should this centrifugal power or the 
power to keep it awa } 7 relax, the earth would gradually draw nearer and 
nearer the sun, till finally the two would unite with a tremendous crash 
and chaos would follow. There is a disease called fatty degeneration 
of the heart, in which fat replaces muscular fiber around the heart, 
enfeebling but quickening its action. The heart can not drive the 
blood to the extremities, and they become numb and paralyzed, grow¬ 
ing colder and more numb, while the heart beats faster and feebler, 
till death ensues. Either catastrophe and chaos or paralysis and 
death follow undue centralization. 

The second danger is akin to the first, and is really a part of it. 

S. Doc. 26-36 


48 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

It is perhaps the underlying cause of all the diseases of centralization. 
It is a concentration of power in a few hands. 

This may be the coming slavery which Spencer has prophesied. 
Truly no tyranny of the past has been so powerful, corrupting, and 
deadly as this ownership of “the earth and the fullness thereof” may 
be if the forces now at work are not directed aright. This tyranny 
will be socialism without democracy, the strong, powerful body with¬ 
out the life-giving heart, “the letter which killeth without the spirit 
which maketh alive.” Inasmuch as our social organism is more firmly 
knit and powerful than ever in the past, it will take a longer time 
for this deadly disease to work its bane, but when it does the more 
complete will be either its catastrophe or its atrophy. 

This concentration gradually takes away the initiative from the 
local parts. They become unable to change themselves or their 
environment to suit each other. They have things done for them, 
and they look more and more to have them done for them. They 
more and more lose the really divine part of man—the creative power. 
They become automatons, machines. They are prevented from exer¬ 
cising their share of the power of beginning, of changing, of initiat¬ 
ing, and they gradually lose that power. Having their affairs attended 
to by others, they lose the power to defend their rights. Tyranny 
ensues, and a tyranny the more powerful because it has spread slowly, 
quietly, using time-honored forms and customs over a people who have 
lost their power of initiating. In this manner corporations have grad¬ 
ually extended their control and government over us. This control 
and government are extralegal and often illegal, but it is none the less a 
form of government in which the governed have no share save to be 
governed. Corporations to-day decide what coal, oil, food, clothing, 
etc., the people shall use and what the people shall pay for them. 
This is taxation without representation. This is taxation for private 
benefit. This is government and not self-government. This is the 
method of socialism without its aim and spirit. This is socialism 
without democracy. The heart of socialism is lacking. It is a bas¬ 
tard and false socialism. 

The scope of this government which is not called government is 
larger far than that government which is nominally under the peo¬ 
ple’s control, but which is really dominated by these outside govern¬ 
ments. These outside governing powers are drawing together. They 
are helping each other. For some time to come they will have a com¬ 
mon aim, and that is giving them a unified action. The sugar trust 
helps the coal barons. The railroad pools aid the Standard Oil Com¬ 
pany. They see the trend of the times toward socialism. They know 
that if they can get control of the Government and the Govern¬ 
ment owns and operates all the means of production, distribution, 
and exchange, they will willingly surrender their powers to it, as they 
will have a trust, a combination, a corporation more gigantic in size, 
more tremendous in power, more stupendous in slavery than the world 
has ever seen. Nothing like it has been known or dreamed of in the 
past. Negro slavery, medieval serfdom, oriental despotism will 
appear mild in their effects on mankind compared with the rottenness 
at top and the devitalization of the rest of society produced by this 
twentieth century vampire. There may.be in the future dangers of a 
despotism more deadly and terrible than this all-embracing trust, but 
the mind of man can not at present conceive of them. Truly, the 
dangers of this false socialism are more awful than the dangers of 
any past form of society. 


49 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

If we wanted to control a railway train we would not stand in front 
and try to stop it; we would be run oyer. We’d control the track 
with its switches and strive to put a safe engineer in charge. The 
train of government runs on the rails of legislation. Control these 
and you control the ultimate goal of the train. The engineer is often 
against the people, but he must run on the rails of legislation. We 
have one mighty power with us, the ballot. Extend that power so 
that it becomes of use, not on one day of the year only, but on three 
hundred and sixty-five days in every year. The people then have 
complete control of the rails on which the engine of government runs. 

This is in line with the theory of our Government, with its wide, 
far-reaching principles uttered bj^ its founders, with a large and con¬ 
stantly growing practice. It has behind it the static forces of our 
society and is drawing to it a large share of the dynamic forces. We 
get by it complete political equality. The people control the rails on 
which the engine of progress moves. The executives who run the 
engine may slacken its progress, but that is another problem. They 
may even try to reverse its direction, but then they have the tremen¬ 
dous task of overcoming the momentum of the whole train. That is 
impossible without creating a ruin in which they would share. But 
they can not, while pretending to guide the train, swerve it around so 
as to reverse the direction without reversing the motion of the train. 

Now the people have had statements—grand, glorious, and mouth- 
filling—of these principles. They want something more; they want 
to know the exact method of carrying out these principles. That 
method is found in direct legislation through the initiative and refer¬ 
endum, which can be applied to any form of government from that of 
the nation to that of the smallest hamlet. By the referendum no law 
goes into effect for a reasonable time after passage—for a State, say 
ninety days. If during that time a reasonable minority o f the voters, 
say 5 per cent, sign a petition to have it referred to the whole people, 
it is voted on at the next election, a majority accepting or rejecting. 
This is negative or preventive. It kills the lobby and prevents bad 
legislation. By the initiative the same reasonable minority, by sign¬ 
ing a petition, can force the consideration of any proposed law by the 
lawmaking body, and if that body does not pass it it is referred to 
the people, and they can enact or reject it by a majority vote. This 
is positive and constructive. The two things make direct legislation 
or the complete control by the people of their legislation. They are 
not sweet and swelling words about the rights of the people, but a plain, 
clear, practical method of applying those rights. By it the people 
would control the rails of legislation. For it we would get, with a 
large part of the dynamic forces, almost all of the static forces of our 
society. It is the method of attack, the first thing first. 

Only a brief statement of the results can be given here. Direct 
legislation is the last step in political equality. We have done away 
with kings and peers and privileged classes in our politics, but 
their place has been foully usurped by bosses and representatives and 
the masters of these bosses and the caucuses. We need no finer state¬ 
ment of the principle in direct legislation than that in our Declara¬ 
tion of Independence that the government shall be “by the consent 
of the governed.” Let us prevent this foul usurpation of the bed¬ 
rock principle of our Government and restore a government by “the 
consent of the governed ” through direct legislation. 

We will find that this last step in political equality will be the first 
step in social, industrial, and economic equality. In the early part 
S. Doc. 340-4 



50 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


of this century, when the representative form of government had not 
developed its evils, and when it was a nearly democratic form of gov¬ 
ernment, we had a far nearer approach to equality in social and eco¬ 
nomic matter. But as our representative system has developed into 
a corrupt tyranny, social and economic inequality has developed, and 
we have classes and masses. The two are interacting causes and 
effects. If we can change our Government to a democracy in politi¬ 
cal affairs, we shall find that it alone, without other reforms, will act 
on our industrial and social conditions to bring equality in them also. 

With direct legislation we need not fear the coming slavery. With it 
we can not have socialism without democracy; with it the people can 
really manage their own affairs, or, if they are not yet fit to manage 
them, they can mismanage them till they become fit. 

It will departisanize our politics and take out of them the bitter 
feeling which is now such a curse. 

It will decentralize power, because each part will be unwilling to 
grant to the whole the things which it can do for itself. It will thus 
permit experiments on a small scale, and from out of the many experi¬ 
ments will grow the true solution. It will thus educate in the science 
of self-government by permitting these experiments and interesting 
a practical people like the Americans in applying self-government. 

It will educate by putting power and the responsibility which goes 
w T ith power where it belongs, on the people. They will make mistakes, 
but they will learn by their mistakes. A burnt child dreads the fire. 
At present mistakes for which they are not responsible sear and embit¬ 
ter the people. It is as if someone should deliberately burn a child’s 
hand. That is the reason the people dread a legislative session. It 
will educate by turning political discussion from men to measures, 
from characters to conditions, from personalities to principles. It 
will make the people fit to govern themselves. 

Hence it will insure progress wherever the people are ready for it, 
as far and as fast as they are ready for it. This will be true progress. 
An advance then made will be held. The people will be behind it. 
We can then get socialism and true socialism, socialism with democ¬ 
racy, as fast and as far as the people are ready for it, and no faster. 
It is really a conservative measure. It will prevent a too rapid 
advance. It means progress consistent with safety, because the people 
are behind such progress. But it means progress when they are ready 
for it. 

It will deliberately and carefully register the “changes of popular 
opinions and sentiments” which Lincoln says are “the only true sov¬ 
ereign of a free people.” Too long we have had under representative 
government the rule of a minority which he says “as a permanent 
arrangement is wholly inadmissible.” And, as he further says, who¬ 
ever rejects direct legislation or majority rule flies “to anarchy or to 
despotism.” 

It means “ not the centralization, but the diffusion of power,” which, 
as Professor Herron says, is “the safety of the present—the lesson of 
history and the divine method.” 

It means, as Bellamy says, that with “the general diffusion of 
intelligence” “the welfare of the whole instead of that of a part” 
will henceforth be “the paramount purpose of the social order.” It 
means, as he further says, that political democracy which is “the 
pioneer corps of economic democracy, clearing the way and providing 
the instrumentality for the substantial part of the programme—the 
equalization of the distribution of work and wealth.” 


51 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


No. 4.— November , 1897. 

SYMPOSIUM ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[Letters from eminent men and women.] 

lion. John Wanamaker, ex-Postmaster-General, leading citizen of 
Philadelphia, and one of the foremost business men of the world: 

I heartily approve of the idea of giving the people a veto on corrupt legislation. 
The movement to secure for the people a more direct and immediate control over 
legislation shall have my support. I trust such a movement will receive the 
thoughtful attention of all who would improve our political and industrial con¬ 
ditions. I am willing to trust public questions to the intelligence and conscience 
of the people. 

William Dean Howells, the great novelist, chief of living American 
litterateurs: 

I am altogether in favor of the initiative and referendum as the only means of 
allowing the people really to take part in making their laws and in governing 
themselves. 

Prof. Helen Campbell, the celebrated writer and teacher: 

Count me in as in fullest sympathy with your league. There is not a point made 
in your plan of work that does not seem to me a necessary part of any real prog¬ 
ress. I believe in it as an education for all the people, the knowledge implied 
being a necessity before civic and national misrule can end. I should work for it 
wherever possible, and know that it must and will come. 

Prof. Frank Parsons, professor in Boston University School of Law; 
also professor of political economy in Pennsylvania State Agricultural 
College, and one of the foremost economic authorities of our time: 

Is self-government right? If so, the referendum and initiative follow. I believe 
in self-government for the sake of justice, safety, manhood, education, develop¬ 
ment, and therefore I believe in the referendum, the most promising means of 
enabling the people to exert a more real and effective control over legislation 
whereby we may hope to secure a more perfect government by and for the people. 

Direct legislation means simply an actual instead of a mere theoretic sovereignty 
of the people. We are governed to-day, not by a democracy, but by an elective 
aristocracy holding for a term. The people are sovereign only at the moment of 
election—the men they elect become their masters for one, two, four, s'x years, as 
the case may be. Self-government is one thing—the choosing of the men who are 
to govern you is a very different thing. A child may choose its guardian; a slave 
might be given a voice in the selection o p his master and yet be absolutely subject 
to his dominion after the choice were made. 

Power will be used in the interests of its possessor. If the power of government 
is to be used in the interests of the people they must have continuous and effective 
possession of the government. We call our legislators ‘‘agents” and the people 
their “principal’’—queer agents who can give away their principal’s property 
despite his protest, and are not responsible to him during their term of service; 
queer principal that can not veto his “agents’” plans, no matter how much he 
objects to them, nor instruct his agents what to do whenever he sees fit, nor dis¬ 
charge said agents when they refuse to carry out his orders; queer principal who 
has to obey the commands of his “ agents,” instead of giving them orders. 

Legislatures and city councils not infrequently submit to the people questions 
of importance on which they wish to enact an honest law, but they never submit 
a franchise steal to the people; when they are acting from honest motives they 
often find the referendum very helpful in coming to a wise and just conclusion, 
but when they are acting from corrupt and selfish motives they have no use for 
the referendum. Valuable gas, electric light, and street railway franchises 
would not be given away to lobbying corporations if we had the referendum. 

I like to sum up a few of the probable benefits of direct legislation by predict¬ 
ing that the initiative and referendum— 

1. Will substitute a real self-government for an elective aristocracy. 

2. Will put a check on corrupt legislation. 

3. Will destroy the lobby—it will no longer bribe legislators who can not deliver 
the goods. 


52 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


4. Will open the door to progress and reform. 

5. Will simplify elections, centering each vote on a single measure instead of a 
conglomerate platform mixed with personal considerations respecting a number 
of candidates. 

G. Will simplify the law. 

7. Will aid the eniorcement of law. 

8. Will save the cost of innumerable impotent petitions, abortive investigations, 
lobby expenses, needless second houses, excessive printing of special laws, local 
acts, etc. , 

9. Will elevate the press by directing discussion to measures disconnected from 
men and affairs. 

10. Will elevate the profession of politics and bring better men into office. 

11. Will educate the people as no other institution can. 

12. Will diminish partisanship. 

13. Will go far to cripple the ring and the boss. 

14. Will break the power of trusts and monopolies. 

15. Will act as a safety valve for discontent, a guarantee against disorder. 
Revolution has little chance where the people can easily mold the law. 

Henry D. Lloyd, the famous author and “fighter ot trusts,” the 
man of wealth, with a mighty pen and a conscience true to the public 
good: 

Direct legislation—the initiative and referendum—must be supported by every 
true believer in free government. These measures contain no new principle and 
their machinery already exists in a crude form in our Government. The initiative 
and referendum simply raise these principles and their application to the highest 
efhcien3y. The people, excited by the pursuits of prosperity in America, which 
has been a universal gold diggings for two centuries, have carelessly allowed their 
delegates in party, corporation, and government to become their rulers, and they 
are now awakening to the startling fact that their delegate has become their 
exploiter. The people are losing the control of their government, the most power¬ 
ful instrumentality for the creation and distribution of wealth in society. Its 
government must le recovered by the American people, peaceably, if possible; 
but it must be recovered. Direct legislation would be the ideal means for this 
peaceable revolution. If the revolution is to be accomplished otherwise, direct 
legislation will stand forth m the new order as the only means for expressing the 
popular will that a free people will exercise. No future republic will ever repeat 
the mistake of giving its delegates the opportunity to become its masters. 

Rev. Lyman Abbott, the eminent divine and editor in chief of the 
Outlook: 

In my judgment the remedy for the evils of democracy is more democracy; a 
fresh appeal from the few to the many, from the managers to the people. I believe 
in the referendum and, within limits, the initiative, because it is one form of this 
appeal from the few to the many, from forces of abstract democracy to democracy, 
that is the rule of the people. 

THE INDIVIDUALISTIC ARGUMENT FOR DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, President National Direct Legislation League.] 

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of him¬ 
self. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found 
angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. 
(Thomas Jefferson, in first inaugural address.) 

By nature every individual has the right to govern himseif, and governments 
must derive their right from the assent, expressed or implied, of the governed and 
be subject to such limitation as they impose. (John C. Calhoun.) 

W T hen the represented is present the representative ceases to exist. (Jean 
Jacques Rousseau.) 

Direct legislation by the people must inevitably result in the simplification of 
the law and i: s instant simplification, for the law will be more rational and more 
in conformity with the general interest. (Martin Rittinghausen.) 

The great truth which individualists bring prominently forward is 
that if the individual is free he will, on the average, develop because 
he is free, because no one is over him to direct and coerce him, and 


53 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

thus cramp liis faculties, destroy his initiative, and make him less of 
a man. To this they often add that the only way to develop society 
is to develop the individual units which compose society. This last is 
very misleading, unless it is joined with its correlative that society is 
both an effect of the development of the individual units which com¬ 
pose it and a cause of such development, and as it grows stronger and 
more complex, it becomes more potent as a cause. 

While advice rightly given and received is always good to develop 
character, while during immaturity government is necessary and ben¬ 
eficial in the development of the individual, yet when maturity lias 
arrived, or some say even drawn near, the wisest government is 
cramping to the individual and worse than the mistakes which inex¬ 
perience makes ; disastrous as the immediate effects of these mistakes 
may seem, the individual learns by them because they are his mis¬ 
takes. Thus there is a fuller devolopment of the individual than is 
possible under the wisest form of outside government. The worst 
form of self-government is better than the best form of outside gov¬ 
ernment or coercion. Their watchword is freedom. 

What is freedom? It is often on our lips, a shibboleth we tight for, 
a name we bow down to. Is it that each can do what he pleases? It 
may be; it may not be. For that may degenerate into license, the 
caricature and opposite of true freedom. 

If I please to do something which injures you, then I am limiting 
your freedom. If each was to be perfectly free to do as he wished, 
without consideration for others, then this country could not hold 
seventy millions of people, nor seventy thousand, nor seventy hundred, 
but perhaps seventy people, if properly scattered, could live here 
because of the animal limitations of human strength in going from 
place to place. But as soon as two of these human beings meet the 
social instinct draws them together and each has to give up some of the 
complete license to do as he pleases, which heretofore was only limited 
by his own unaided human powers as opposed to the untamed nature 
around him. In return he gets, by combination with his fellow-men, 
a greater power over nature, thus removing natural limitations from 
him and raising him to a wider freedom; he gets a greater power in 
himself, making grander and finer his thoughts, emotions, and sensi¬ 
bilities, and lastly, as society grows, it develops an organism of itself 
separate and distinct from the life of the individual. The accumulat¬ 
ing inheritance of the past forms a mold out of which the social energjr 
and life of the present bud and blossom, ever opening new aspects of 
freedom to the individual. Thus, as civilization progresses, the indi¬ 
vidual is ever giving up the lower and outgrown and unnecessary 
freedoms of savagery, of license, of lower and nature-limited life for 
the higher and larger and finer freedoms of nature-commanding life, 
of social life, of moral, intellectual, and spiritual individual develop¬ 
ment. If properly developed, he has with each step more freedom 
and not less. 

As soon as two human beings come together there is the birth, 
inchoate, unnoticed, rudimentary of the moral social consciousness, 
and as society grows it grows till the definition of freedom becomes 
clear. 

It is that each can do as he ought, not as he might, could, or would, 
but as he should, unless these coincide with what he should. It is the 
opportunity to do as he should. It is doing, freedom or free doing 
and a conscious and free choosing of the doing. It is self-government. 
It is not the doing as a king or priest says, no matter how j ust and 


54 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


right that dictation may he. It is the right doing as the individual 
dictates for himself if the doing only concerns the individual. If the 
doing concerns the community, it is as that community dictates for 
itself and not as somebody chosen out of or outside of that community 
says it shall do. Such a rule maj^ be beneficent; it is more often 
maleficent and in time it will become a tyranny. At its best it is not 
self-government; it is not freedom. 

Neither is this free doing anarchy in the ordinary understanding 
of that word; for anarchy, as its etymology implies, is doing without 
laws and government. 

True freedom is not a doing without laws, but a getting above them, 
a using of them as a scaffold to get to larger freedoms. When walking 
on a city’s crowded street I keep to the right, as the law of custom 
demands, thus giving up the lower liberty of going anywhere I please 
for the larger and finer privileges the street with its custom law affords 
of social and business intercourse. As far as you and I desire, the 
law against murder might just as well not be on the statute books. 
We have no wish to violate it. We are above it. It does not limit 
our freedom. But it does prevent others who are not as advanced as 
we are from murdering us. Thus progress is not conditioned on the 
limitations of the least developed, but in both cases the laws whether 
custom made or legal are the scaffolding whereby we get a wider and 
finer freedom. Of course, this presupposes that the laws are the 
deliberately formed and carefully framed true opinions of the people 
and not the edict of a king or the utterance of a class in its own 
interest. 

Whether or no this is philosophical anarchism, it is what I under¬ 
stand individualism to be, though so great has been the abuse of law¬ 
making in the last half century that many extreme individualists are 
inclined to take the anarchist position and saj^: “Let us have no 
laws at all.” 

A nation fights for its autonomy. What is meant by that word 
autonomy? Simply national freedom for self-government, freedom to 
do the right as it sees it, freedom even to make mistakes if those mis¬ 
takes do not interfere with some neighboring nation’s like freedom. 
For mistakes are the surest schoolmaster and corrective. Yet a 
nation, though having complete autonomy, is not free to do or allow 
flagrant wrongdoing, else other nations interfere to stop it, as in the 
Armenian massacres. At least this is the theory, though the practice 
is at present very imperfect, because the will of the people is not 
followed. 

So each locality should preserve, by fighting, if need be, its auton¬ 
omy, its State’s rights, its community rights. In the things which 
only concern itself it should have complete autonomy—that is, self- 
government, true freedom. In things which concern a larger locality 
or community of which the smaller is a part, the smaller should acqui¬ 
esce in the will of the larger when that will is properly expressed. 
But if the matter only concerns the smaller community, no other 
power than that community should decide that matter. If it only 
concerns the individual, the individual alone should decide it. Any¬ 
thing else is not self-government, but tyranny; it injures both the 
man or body that exercises it, and the man or body it is exercised on. 
The same rule applies to individuals. 

Who shall judge whether a matter concerns an individual or a 
locality or between a smaller locality and a larger one? 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


55 


This, I take, is the kernel of the whole controversy between an¬ 
archy and socialism, though not between true individualism and 
socialism. The anarchist answers this question directly the contrary 
to the answer I give. The individualist, perhaps reluctantly, gives 
the same answer. 

It will not do to make the individual or the smaller locality the 
judge as to what concerns it alone. He or it would decide in his own 
favor as against the larger locality, and this in time would lead to 
anarchy, chaos, planlessness. The individual on the average is more 
biased about his own rights than the community about its community 
rights, because the small community is composed of individuals and 
each individual, when he comes to define the line between the rights 
and powers of the individual and the community, even if it is to 
apply at that time to other individuals, will see that it affects him, and 
will want a just division. The small community is on the average 
more biased about its rights at the time the necessity for a division 
comes up than the larger community about its rights, because the 
larger community is composed of the smaller. If the decision of the 
whole people of the larger community, not of some special class or 
small body in it, is carefully and accurately obtained, it will be safer 
to leave the exact limitation of the rights of the smaller community 
in the hands of the larger community than anywhere else. The same 
rule applies to the individual in his relation to the community. 

How are we to get true freedom, self-government; and, to be com¬ 
plete, it must not only be political but social, economic, industrial, 
intellectual, and embrace all of the sides and activities of life. The 
next step toward freedom is political self-government. It we partially 
have now. Through it the others can be obtained. Through it the 
education necessary for the others can be gained. How can we get 
political self-government? We have done away with the middleman 
in religion. A man can worship as he pleases. We have done away 
with the middleman in our intellectual life; a man can think as he 
pleases. We have partially done away with the middleman in our 
governmental life, but not completely. The people themselves must 
have the final say on the laws which govern them. Then will the 
people have complete self-government in political matters. 

The path has been blazed in this country by the New England town 
meeting, by the method of ratifying the fundamental law of the land, 
the national and State constitutions, by many thousands of local ref- 
erendums, bj r the experience of the trades unions. The path has been 
made plain and straight and buttressed by the experience of the model 
republic of the Old World, Switzerland. 

The principle at the bottom of this is that a suitable minority of the 
people may demand that any law passed by the law-making body shall 
be referred to a poll of the whole people interested, and also that a 
suitable minority of the people may initiate anj^ law for their govern¬ 
ance which after a fit discussion shall go to a poll of the whole people 
interested and their decision shall, in both cases, be final. 

The first is called the referendum, the referring to the people; the 
second, the initiative, the starting of a law. The referendum is nega¬ 
tive, preventive; the initiative is positive, constructive. The two 
together constitute direct legislation in distinction to our present sys¬ 
tem of indirect legislation, where the people give the complete control 
of legislation to men selected nominally by the people, but really by 
party managers. Through direct legislation the people can have the 


56 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


complete and constant control of the making of the laws which govern 
them. This is self-government. It is the necessary political step 
toward larger social and economic freedom. 

Under direct legislation any locality alone could veto any law passed 
by the legislature which was not general in its application. It can 
make for itself the laws which it needs to govern itself. This means 
complete local self-government. It is full adherence to the wise say¬ 
ing: “Where the law is administered, there it should be made.” 

Hence, the first step toward true freedom for the nation, the State, 
the locality, the individual is the complete autonomy of each division 
of the body politic from the nation down to the smallest locality and 
the individual to be obtained through direct legislation. Complete 
local self-government thus and thus only is obtainable. By it the 
people’s will can easily be found and quickly embodied into law. 

In this country we have a fairly good delimitation of the sphere or 
definition of the duties of the National Government, but the State 
governments tyrannize over the municipal and local governments. 
The legislature of Illinois makes laws for Chicago which three-fourths 
at least of the people of Chicago do not want. The farmer legislators 
at Albany impose their will, or rather their ignorance, on the imperial 
city of New York against its expressed wishes, with at times disastrous 
effects. Under direct legislation a law which applied to onty one 
locality could be vetoed by that locality, thusgivingit self-government, 
thus forcing the laws, as Rittinghausen says, to be “more rational 
and more in conformity with the general interest.” 

Lastly, as an absolute necessity, if we are to achieve freedom, self- 
government in the nation, the State, the municipality or locality, and 
the individual, direct legislation will force the simplification of laws 
both in number, in wording, and in principles applied. During 1892 
there were nearly thirteen thousand national and State laws passed. 
The legislature of New Jersey alone passed 600, some of which were 
longer than the whole Justinian code governing the Roman Empire 
for centuries. The legislature of New York passed, in 1897, 747 laws, 
and in the last Congress 24,000 laws and resolutions were introduced. 
It is growing worse, in a geometrical ratio. Not only are the laws of 
one year piled on those of all past years, but each yearly dump of 
laws is larger than the preceding years. Then the law-making bodies, 
recognizing their inefficiency and verbosity, are creating law-drafting 
commissions, and the courts, interpreting ambiguous phraseolog}^ now 
one way, now another, are still further complicating the tangle. A 
shrewd, painstaking lawyer can find a law or decision which will 
make legal almost any act. 

Compare this with the Cantons of Berne and Zurich, in Switzerland, 
where they have the obligatory referendum; every law has to be voted 
on by the people. During the last score of years they have passed an 
average of between four and five laws a year. These laws are based 
on general principles, are short, simple, and easily understood. In 
proportion to the population, Switzerland has one-seventh of the law¬ 
yers that we have in the LTiited States. 

To summarize: The individualist wants freedom or self-government, 
as being the best for the development of the individual, the locality, 
the state, the nation. He can get self-government in direct legisla¬ 
tion, and there is no other method before the people by which he can 
get it. He recognizes that the nation, state, locality, and individual 
each have spheres of action, and all the individuals composing the 
nation are the ones to define its sphere of action; then all the individ- 


57 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

uals in a state are the ones to define its sphere of activities, providing 
none of these conflict with the national activities, which are supreme. 
The same rule applies to the sphere of local government and of the 
individual. Direct legislation is the only method of obtaining the 
clear and explicit voice of the people when they are ready to define 
any sphere of activity. Lastly, as an immediate and practical reason, 
it will simplify laws in number, wording, and principles embodied. 

No. 5.— December, 1897. 

SYMPOSIUM ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[Letters from eminent men and women.] 

Hon. John P. St. John, ex-governor of Kansas, candidate of Pro¬ 
hibition party for Presidency: 

I might write page after page on direct legislation, and at last the whole of it 
could be boiled down in the simple statement that I am fully convinced that the 
initiative and referendum will be the final solution of the question, “How can 
reformers be gotten together?” In view of the brutal, unprovoked murder of 
those poor, unarmed, defenseless miners at Hazleton, Pa., it is possible that the 
one great question which will overshadow all others in 1900 will be the preserva¬ 
tion and perpetuation of human liberty. This is a day of murder, suicide, rob¬ 
bery, hunger, and starvation, the legitimate fruits of government controlled by 
monopolies and trusts, and direct legislation would give back to the people con¬ 
trol of the Government. 

Bolton Hall, of New York: 

The vast volume of legislation is at present the main obstacle in the way of 
liberty. Even to know what laws are passed in one legislature would occupy 
more than all a man's leisure time. Nearly all these laws are in somebody’s spe¬ 
cial interest, and as no one can have a special privilege except at the expense of 
the rest, nearly every such act has some advocates more or less informed and 
active. 

That six to eight hundred laws, nevertheless, go through the New York legis¬ 
lature each year is due to the improbability and futility of opposition by the many 
who have a small interest in each matter to the few who have a great interest 

in it. 

By putting a weapon in the hands of the leaders of the inert majority, direct 
legislation, especially the referendum, would make opposition to jirivate laws 
easy and effective. Combined with proportional representation, it seems to me it 
would reduce legislation to the minimum, which is necessary for the public 
interest. 

Hon. Andrew E. Lee, governor of South Dakota: 

It should take no argument to convince anyone not by birth, interest, and 
instinct a royalist, that the people, being the source of all power in a representa¬ 
tive government, should exercise that power. This should follow naturally in 
all matters of legislation and in the settlement and adjustment of public policies. 
The state is a great corporation, and every citizen is a stockholder, entitled to 
one vote and no more in the shaping of the policy of that corporation, no matter 
how great or wealthy or influential he may be. This is the state as it should be 
and will be under direct legislation. 

I can see that the occupation of the lobbyist will be gone under direct legis¬ 
lation. W hen he is compelled to appeal his case directly to the voters of the 
state and submit his designs to the scrutiny of public discussion he will conclude 
that his game is not worth the pains, and thus about the worst, most selfish, cor¬ 
rupt, and demoralizing phase of our political system will be at once removed. 
Men will then divide on matters of principle. Much of our difficulty in advanc¬ 
ing popular reforms has been due to the impossibility of adopting any new sys¬ 
tem except as the result of a party fight, which has invariably resulted, and must 
invariably result, in many men following their party and defeating their principles. 

Rev. John L. Scudder, pastor First Congregational Church (the 
People's Tabernacle), Jersey City, N. J.: 

I regard direct legislation through the initiative and referendum by all means 
the most important and far-reaching reform of our day. The curse of our land 


58 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


is purchasable legislation; the disposition of our lawmakers to sell out the people 
to the highest bidder. Under direct legislation bribery will cease and the sov¬ 
ereignty of the people will be something more than an empty name and pleasing 
delusion. This reform is the basis and prerequisite of other popular reforms. It 
is bound to win. I will fight for it as long as I live. 

Charlotte Perkins Stetson, author of “In this Our World” and 
other poems: 

The proportion of voters necessary to a just exercise of the initiative and ref¬ 
erendum is open to discussion, but the principle itself is not only just and simple, 
but wholly in line with the basic principle of our democracy. Moreover, any 
abuses which may suggest themselves to the critic are easily seen to fall of their 
own weight, for “ the people” are as open to the force of “ interest and inertia” 
as any legislature, and will not be stirred to take action save in matters which are 
of sufficient crucial importance to force themselves on popular attention; and 
when the people are roused to action in their own interest, it seems modestly 
reasonable that they should have their own way. 

REPRESENTATION DOES NOT REPRESENT. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, President National Direct Legislation League.] 

I have no idea that the interests, feelings, and opinions of three or four millions 
of people, especially as touching internal taxation, can be collected in such a 
house (House of Representatives). In the nature of things, nine times out of ten, 
men of the elevated classes only can be chosen. * * * Should the United 
States be taxed by a House of Representatives of 200 members, still the lower and 
middle classes of people could have no great show in fact in taxation. — (Richard 
Henry Lee.) 

In the House of Representatives there is not the substance but the shadow of 
representation.—(George Mason.) 

All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary result to the 
legislative body. The concentrating of these in the same hands is precise y the 
definition of a despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers 
will be exercised by a plurality of hands and not by a single one—173 despots will 
surely be as oppressive as 1. An elective despotism was not the government we 
fought for. — (Thomas Jefferson.) 

The minority, the educated men. embodies knowledge not possessed to the same 
extent by the majority, the men of the people, but the majority embodies wants 
and needs not felt to the same degree by the minority.—(Emile De Girardin.) 

True representation does not exist. We have a sham representation. It gives 
a show of fairness, but it is crude and essentially unfair. It does not represent 
the people. It represents the politicians. We are a law-abiding people. Yet our 
laws are made by a minority of the people, and by an irresponsible oligarchy more 
dangerous than that our fathers revolted against.—(Prof. John R. Commons.) 

There are five main reasons why representation does not and can 
not represent: 

(1) Whole classes of the people are not and can not be represented 
(and these classes embrace more than half of the people) by men of 
their own class and condition, who are the only ones who can fully 
underst and their wants and needs. 

(2) Political parties are not properly represented and other parties 
not at all. All we have is geographical representation, and though 
that may have been useful a century ago, it is useless now, because 
of changed conditions. 

(3) From its very nature representation can only roughly approxi¬ 
mate the wishes of the community. Only a few great "interests can 
be thus determined; where many issues are before the people it 
breaks down completely. 

(4) Representation fails because of the weakness of human nature 
and the concentration of corruption. 

(5) The size of the country has necessitated the building up of 
great political machines managed by bosses, and the elected repre- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 59 

sentative owes his nomination to the machine and its boss, and so 
renders first allegiance to him and not to the people. 

The first of these reasons was very clearly seen by the founders of 
this country, as is shown by the first three quotations at the head of 
this article, and 17 out of the 55 members of the Constitutional Con¬ 
vention refused to sign the report of that convention referring the 
Constitution to the people for adoption mainly for this reason. It 
was not democratic enough; it did not afford a mouthpiece for the 
people. What were their remedies ? They were men of great con¬ 
structive ability. 

Alexander Con tee Hanson, chancellor of Maryland, said: 

The perfection of political science consists chiefly in providing mutual checks 
among the several departments of power, preserving at the same time the depend¬ 
ence of the greatest on the people. 

John Dickinson said: 

It has been unanimously agreed by the friends of liberty that frequent elections 
of the representatives of the people are the sovereign remedy of all the grievances 
in a free government. 

Many other quotations might be given, but all their plans centered 
on these two methods of checks and frequent elections. These meth¬ 
ods are efficient, but not sufficient. 

Everyone recognizes that the House of Representatives, whose 
members are elected every two years, comes nearer to truly represent¬ 
ing the people than the Senate, whose members are chosen for six years 
years and not directly by the people. Frequent elections do bring the 
Representatives into closer touch with the people. But if the elections 
were so frequent that the people had complete control of their Repre¬ 
sentatives they would occur before every vote, and that would be 
absurd. But the more frequent the elections, the shorter time does 
the Representative have in office. He can not get acquainted with its 
duties till his term is nearly over. During this term he must manage 
for reelection; he can not attend in an efficient manner to the work he 
is sent to do. This is the great advantage which the Senator has over 
the member of the House. Ilis term is so long that he can become 
acquainted with his work, does not need to at once manipulate for 
reelection, and can show whether he is a really able man. Hence, in 
proportion to the number, more Senators are reelected, despite their 
three times as long term, than members of the House. There are two 
sides to this question of frequent elections. Then there is the ques¬ 
tion of expense, and also the stubborn fact that if the elections are 
frequent, many people won’t vote, though this is mainly due to the 
uselessness of voting. While frequent elections may be efficient to a 
certain extent they are not sufficient. 

The system of checks is good also. It is more difficult and tedious 
for any large interest to control the law making power. Onty the 
strongest attempt it. But it also makes it more difficult for the peo¬ 
ple to enforce their wishes when they want a change. The system of 
checks is like the fortifications around a city. It requires a long and 
difficult siege to get possession of them. The smaller roving bands 
of marauding freebooters can not attempt such a siege. Often an 
alarm may be raised by a patriotic official inside and help gained 
before the forts are taken. But when once a powerful enemy has 
made this siege and come into possession of all, or nearly all these 
checks, it is equally difficult to dislodge him, and, like Boss Tweed, he 
may stick his finger to his nose and say, “ What are you going to do 


60 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


about it?” There are two sides also to checks, and while they are 
efficient in securing due deliberation in the passage of laws, they often 
prevent the passage of good laws and are instruments for thwarting 
the wishes of the people. They, too, are efficient, but not sufficient. 

Having cleared the ground by giving the proper value to the meth¬ 
ods of our constitution builders, let us analyze the five reasons why 
representation does not represent. When Lee said that men only of 
the “elevated classes” could be chosen, he spoke of a people of three 
or four million, and not of one of seventy million, and of a people 
practically homogeneous and with a far nearer equality of economic 
and social conditions. Since his day our people have been dividing 
into classes, the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, 
the weak and the strong, and while the Anglo-Saxon element is still 
dominant, we have Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Italian- 
Americans, French-Americans, Bohemian-Americans, Polish-Ameri- 
cans, and many others. Deplore these as you may, they are facts 
which must be recognized, and men of the “elevated classes only” 
can be chosen. Our middle classes are only partially represented in 
our legislatures and our lower classes not at all. In certain sections 
of the country it is almost as difficult for a poor man to get into a leg- 
lature as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, and in all sec¬ 
tions it is growing increasingly difficult. Though the rich man may 
be educated and well-disposed and have superior knowledge, he does 
not know and can not know from his very position the wants and 
needs of the lower classes; he can not efficiently legislate for them. 

In Lee’s time, too, the educated classes considered it an honor to 
serve the people. They were elected to the legislatures and city coun¬ 
cils, and usually did their work well. At present a man has got to go 
through so much political muck that few of the really elevated classes 
attempt it. Honest men do not attempt it. This has gone so far that 
the office of an alderman or city councilor is almost looked on as a dis¬ 
grace. We do not have a government of the “elevated classes,” but 
one of the people, by the politicians who are in it for the money they 
can make from it, and so are in the pay of corporations; and so it is 
a government for the corporations. 

Here are some facts to show this overrepresentation of the ‘ ‘ ele¬ 
vated classes ” and almost complete non representation of the lower 
classes. In the Senate of the Fifty-third Congress, 64, or over 70 per 
cent, of the 86 members were lawyers, 6 bankers, 10 manufacturers or 
merchants, 1 a doctor, 1 a farmer, and 4 are classed as miscellaneous. 
In the House, with 346 members, 245, or over 70 cent, were lawyers, 14 
bankers, 21 manufacturers or merchants, 5 doctors, 25 farmers, 8 edi¬ 
tors, and 28 miscellaneous. According to the census of 1880, out of 
17,392,000 persons with occupations, 0.37 of 1 per cent were lawyers, 
and yet they numbered over 70 per cent of the legislators. Over 18£ 
per cent of the people are farm laborers and 25^ per cent are farmers 
and others engaged in agricultural work, making, with the laborers, 
44 per cent, and they had 1 Senator and 25 members in the House, or 
about 1 per cent of the legislators. Domestic laborers number 6 per 
cent and other laborers over 10 per cent. Perhaps they are represented 
in the miscellaneous. Nearly 10^ per cent are engaged in trade and 
transportation. Where do they come in? The bankers number 0.09 
of 1 per cent, and they have over 100 times the representatives they 
are entitled to in the 6 bankers in the Senate and the 14 in the House. 
While there are doubtless enough railroad attorneys in both Houses 
to amply represent the 0.38 of 1 per cent of railroad officials, where do 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


61 


the 236,000 of rauroad employees come in, and the 204,000 draymen, 
and the 100,000 sailors, and the 381,000 clerks, and the 120,000*book- 
keepers? These number over 7 per cent of the working population. 
Doubtless the 487,000 traders and the 44,000 manufacturers, number¬ 
ing 3 per cent, are represented by the 10 manufacturers and merchants 
in the Senate and the 21 in the House. But how about the rest of 
those engaged in manufacturing? They are nearly 22 percent of our 
population. 

The same is true of our local legislatures. During the decade from 
1880 to 1890 the lawyers numbered nearly 60 per cent of the Massachu¬ 
setts legislatures. Of the fifteen cities producing the largest values 
in manufactured products, Newark, N. J., has the largest proportion 
of wage workers to population, and yet not one of her 11 representa¬ 
tives in the State legislatures of the last four years is a wage worker, 
and most of them have been lawyers. 

It is true of foreign lawmaking bodies. Four hundred and fifty 
railroad shareholders in England have 22 members of Parliament, 
while 380,000 railroad employees have none. Eight hundred thousand 
agricultural laborers have 1, and the landowners have 130, besides 
the House of Lords, and they are fewer in proportion to the popula¬ 
tion than in this country. Shipowners have 25 representatives and 
220,000 seamen have 1. Mine owners have 21 and 655,000 miners have 
7. There are 15 mill owners in Parliament and not 1 operative; 24 
ironmasters and not 1 worker. This is true of all lawmaking bodies. 
The classes are not represented. 

Many of these legislators are noble, patriotic men; but the best of 
them can not help being biased by his training, occupation, and asso¬ 
ciates. He will see his needs clearer than those of other walks of 
life. It is a truism that one-half of the people do not know how the 
other half live, and if the lawmakers are taken so completely from 
the “elevated classes” they will make laws suited to the “elevated 
classes,” because they can not, and do not, know and feel the wants 
and needs of the masses. A representative body, to be of the highest 
usefulness, should represent all classes of the community, and that 
is an impossibility, as the lower classes do not at present know how 
to voice their needs and aspirations so as to embody them into law, 
though this is becoming less true. But they can decide on a measure 
when it is submitted to them. Hence representation does not repre¬ 
sent, because large classes of the community are entirely unrepre¬ 
sented in the lawmaking bodies. We have, as Mason says, “not the 
substance but the shadow of representation.” 

(2) Nor are political parties properly represented. If each party 
had been represented in the Fifty-third Congress in proportion to the 
number of votes cast for that party there would have been 153 Repub¬ 
licans, instead of 127; 164 Democrats, instead of 218; 31 Populists, 
instead of 9, and 8 Prohibitionists, instead of none. In the Fifty- 
fourth Congress there would have been 165 Republicans, instead of 
245; 135 Democrats, instead of about 100; 44 Populists, instead of 11, 
and 8 Prohibitionists, instead of none. Hope and Home, speaking of 
the 1896 elections for assemblymen in California, says. 

To return 1 Democrat required an average of 7,433 voters, but for 1 Repub¬ 
lican an average of 1,797 was sufficient; 52,826 elected one Populist, while 5,172 
Prohibitionists elected nothing. One Republican vote has therefore more influ¬ 
ence in State affairs than 4 Democrats, and almost as much as 30 Populists. All 
these 62 assemblymen were elected by 96,058 of the voters—a shade less than 45 
per cent—and the remaining 117,379 are as completely unrepresented as if they 
resided in Tartary. With more than double the vote cast for Weaver in 1892 


62 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


when they secured 8 members in the assembly (all but 1 by fusion), the Popu¬ 
lists have this year secured but 1, and that 1 by the aid of Democratic votes. 
The assembly outside of San Francisco now consists of 52 Republicans, 8 Demo¬ 
crats, 1 Populist, and 1 Independent. In proportion to the party vote, it should 
have been 27 Republicans, 17 Democrats, 15 Populists, 1 Independent, and 2 Pro¬ 
hibitionists. 

Sometimes it is the other way. In Kansas at the last election the 
Republicans cast nearly 49 per cent of the vote and the Populists just 
over 51 per cent, and yet the Populists elected 6 of the 8 Congressmen, 
while in New Jersey, though the Republicans polled only about 60 
per cent of the vote, they elected all the 8 Congressmen. Perhaps 
Hope and Home puts it a little strong when it says: 

Not another word is needed to prove the glaring injustice and absolute idiocy 
of a system which should be hooted out of existence, as fitted only for lunatics, 
idiots, and knaves. 

The introduction of religious and other issues into politics shows 
ver} plainly that it is impossible for representation to represent our 
religious parties. 

Geographical representation is all our present system provides. A 
century ago this was a vital point. In one locality there were few 
and unimportant class divisions. It was almost homogeneous. A 
man could represent it, carrying with him to the central body its local 
flavor and getting its local wants. Other communists differed from 
it, and they had their own representatives. ’ But with the growth of 
our great systems of transportation and intercommunication there 
has come a churning up of our people; local lines have been broken 
down, local differences have been eliminated; but the growth of 
great fortunes and the socialization of industries in huge factories has 
built up class divisions instead of geographical divisions, and geo¬ 
graphical representation is to-day almost useless. 

Proportional representation would remedy this evil quite completely, 
but it would not touch the other reasons why representation does not 
represent. It would give us just political representation, but should 
the people wish to divide on economic, social, industrial, or religious 
questions they could not do so save through political parties under 
proportional representation; it will be good as a supplement to direct 
legislation, but never as a complete remedy for nonrepresentation and 
misrepresentation. 

No. 6.— January , 1898. 

FAMOUS STATESMEN AND ECONOMISTS ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

Prof. W. II. H. Lecky, Conservative member of Parliament, author 
of Democracy and Liberty, History of European Morals, etc.: 

The referendum would have the immense advantage of disentangling issues, 
separating one great question from the many minor questions with which it may 
be mixed. Confused or blended issues are among the greatest political dangers of 
our time. It would bring into action the opinion of the great silent classes of the 
community and reduce to their true proportions many movements to which party 
combinations or noisy agitation have given a fictitious prominence. The expe¬ 
rience of Switzerland and America shows that when the referendum takes root in 
a country it takes political questions, to an immense degree, out of the hands of 
wire-pullers and makes it possible to decide them mainly, though perhaps not 
wholly, on their merits, without producing a change of government or of party 
predominance.—(From Democracy and Liberty.) 

Col. David B. Henderson, Republican Congressman from Iowa and 
Chairman of Judiciary Committee: 

It would be a great advantage to a public man if expressions on measures could 
be had from the people, and in a general way I can say, without hesitation, that 


63 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

any plan which will enable the people to know what they are thinking; in other 
words, to let A know what B, C, and D believe can not do otherwise than good, 
and, above all, an intelligent expression of the mass of the voters on any and all 
leading questions would be of great value to public servants. On these two lead¬ 
ing propositions—in untrammeled ballot and the free, intelligent expression of the 
people—I will ever be found, favoring both, and can be so quoted. Whatever is 
done should permit the fullest discussion before the vote is taken, so that the citi¬ 
zens may compare notes fully and the questions discussed may enter into the cam¬ 
paigns among the people. 

R. S. Thompson, Prohibitionist, editor of the New Era and the Bea¬ 
con, of Springfield, Ohio: 

I advocate direct legislation, because: First. It is inherently right. The divine 
right of the people to govern is now recognized, and only through direct legislation 
can that divine right be exercised. 

Second. It is practical. Under our present ballot system there is no difficulty 
in submitting to a direct vote of the people all laws that are likely to require such 
reference. 

Third. It is the only manner in which we can get a fair expression of the will 
of the people in regard to each separate question that is up for settlement. Under 
our present system people are compelled to vote for measures which they oppose 
in order to obtain the measures which they favor and to vote against measures 
which they favor in order to defeat measures which they oppose. It is therefore 
the only method of securing the will of the majority in regard to every important 
measure. 

Fourth. It will do away with the boss, the boodler, and the lobbyist. Corpora¬ 
tions could not afford to buy legislatures if the acts of those legislatures could be 
reversed by the people; neither could they elect certain candidates if those candi¬ 
dates were powerless to aid them after election. 

Fifth. It is the only practical way of securing the reforms of which the country 
is so badly in need. 

Judge W. L. Stark, Populist-Democrat member of Congress from 
Nebraska: 

In this country for more than six years our party has platformed the initiative 
and referendum. We have explained the doctrine in meetings until the matter is 
fairly understood. Personally, I am convinced that it is the fundamental reform. 
Our political campaigns are but “Wars of the Roses.” Jefferson was right: 
“Trust the people.” Lincoln was right: “A government of, for, and by the peo¬ 
ple.” I am for any proper plan to enlarge the rights of the people and curtail the 
powers of officeholders. I will be glad to do anything I can to forward the initia¬ 
tive and referendum, as I consider it one of the greatest reforms of our time. 

Prof. J. R. Commons, professor of sociology in Syracuse (N. Y.) 
University: 

One of the most important issues before the American people at the present time 
is bribery. N o reform movement, no citizens’ union or the like can fully cope with 
it. A despotism, a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy can be corrupt and 
survive, for it depends upon the army; a republic, a democracy, depends on mutual 
confidence, and if bribery shatters this confidence it is of all forms of government 
the most despicable. It can survive only by the army and the police. 

The referendum is the only complete and specific cure for bribery. It alono 
goes to the source of corruption. It deprives lawmakers and executives of their 
monopoly of legislation. They can no longer “deliver the goods.” The secret 
ballot, official primaries, civil-service reform, proportional representation are all 
needful, but they all leave to a few the monopoly of government and the power 
to sell at a monopoly price. If they should be all adopted the immense interests 
dependent on legislation will pay not less but more money, and will control them. 
Even public ownership of public enterprises, although it ultimately destroys the 
largest corruption fund, must first be brought about by legislation, and this will 
be the signal for a carnival of bribery more profligate than any hitherto seen. 

With the referendum the use of money, whether honest or corrupt, will be 
almost abolished. In fact, the main objection to the referendum is that it defeats 
sound reforms as well as “jobs,” because the people lack confidence in their law¬ 
makers. In the long run it is too conservative; it will disappoint the radicals 
who now advocate it. The conservatives, who now oppose it, will be its hottest 
champions. The initiative will give but little help in this direction. Other 

S. Doc. 26 - 37 


04 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

reforms, particularly proportional representation, are needed for progressive leg¬ 
islation. But that is in the future. Bribery must first be settled. Every citizen, 
whether conservative or radical, can unite at once on the referendum, the only 
death blow to bribery. The political machine and the boss will then go, too. for 
they will have no corporation treasuries to feed upon. After that we can think 
of positive reforms. 

REPRESENTATION DOES NOT REPRESENT. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, president National Direct Legislation League.] 

What is it to the ragged, grimy freeman of a 10-pound franchise borough, 
whether Aristides Rigmarole, esq., of the Destructive, or the Hon. Alcides 
Dolittle, of the Conservative party, be sent to Parliament; much more whether 
the two-thousandth part of them be sent, for that is the amount of his faculty in 
it. Destructive or Conservative, what will either of them destroy or conserve of 
vital moment to this freeman? Has he found either of them care, at bottom, a 
sixpence for him or his interests, or those of his class or of his cause, or of any 
class or cause that is of much value to God or to man? Rigmarole and Dolittle 
have alike cared for themselves hitherto, and for their own clique and self-conceited 
crochets, their greasy, dishonest interests of pudding or windy, dishonest inter¬ 
ests of praise, and not very perceptibly for any other interest whatever.—(Thomas 
Carlyle.) 

The people have become afraid of their legislatures. The full representative 
functions, which in earlier times were granted to the delegate, have been little by 
little withdrawn. Legislatures no longer’elect the executive and judicial officers, 
but are even restricted in legislative duties, for many States fix in the constitu¬ 
tion the earliest possible day for adjournment. The people are seeking some 
means to control their legislatures. They elect, but fear and distrust their law¬ 
makers. It looks as if one of their remedies would be to infuse into the ancient 
right of petition the right to compel the attention of representatives. Possibly 
the people may demand that the very words of that petition be made law. (Prof. 
John M. Vincent, of Johns Hopkins University.) 

(Continued.) 

(3) Representation does not represent, because no one man can 
completely represent another. No two human beings are perfectly 
alike. Even if the best man is always elected, there are some issues 
on which he does not represent those who voted for him. Thus at the 
1896 election most of the gold Democrats voted for McKinley, although 
he directly misrepresented them on the protection issue, and the sil¬ 
ver Republicans voted for Bryan, although on the tariff for revenue 
issue he misrepresented them. A thinking voter casts his vote for 
either of three reasons, or for some combination of them; first, he 
thinks the platform of the party whose candidate he votes for suits 
him, on the whole, better than that of the other parties, but there may 
be in it one or more planks to which he is totally opposed; second, 
he uses the opinions or record of the candidate in the same way as 
under the first he uses the platform; third, he votes for the candi¬ 
date because he believe^ in his honesty of purpose and ability. Yet 
that very honesty may lead the elected candidate to pass some meas¬ 
ure to which the voter is much opposed. Even under the best condi¬ 
tions representation can not represent. All students of economics 
recognize Switzerland as one of the most honest of democratic Govern¬ 
ments. Dr. Charles Borgeaud, of the University of Geneva, said 
recently: “It is still asserted that the will of the nation is identical 
with that of representatives chosen by universal suffrage. Contem¬ 
porary experience most abundantly disproves this theory. The exam¬ 
ple of the Swiss people, who, in 1872, rejected a constitution which its 
representatives had adopted by a majority of more than 2 to 1, in a 
legislature chosen specially for that purpose, is conclusive; but it is 
far from being the only case. In a list of the numerous popular votes 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


65 


to which the revision of constitutions has given rise in the States of 
the American Union and in the cantons of Switzerland the roll of 
votes in the negative would he almost as long as those in the affirma¬ 
tive. In 1880 the Grand Council of Geneva enacted a constitutional 
law separating the church from the state. The legislature had been 
chosen only recently. The question had been put categorically in the 
course of the campaign, but the victorious party had achieved a bril¬ 
liant success. Submitted to a popular vote, the law was rejected by 
an overwhelming majority in an election which showed the greatest 
number of participants ever recorded. To say, as is often said, that 
the choice of representatives is equivalent to the most formal popu¬ 
lar vote is simply to turn one’s back upon the evidence.” 

In California, in 1896, the people voted on six constitutional amend¬ 
ments submitted to them by a Republican legislature and championed 
by the Republicans. They accepted three, rejected three, and 
reelected a Republican legislature. In Nebraska the Republicans 
submitted twelve amendments to the people and were defeated by the 
Populists at the polls, but the amendments received majorities rang¬ 
ing from 54 per cent to 70 per cent of the votes cast, while the Popu¬ 
list majorities on the eleven State officers elected and on the Presi¬ 
dential electors ranged from a plurality of nearly 50 per cent to a 
majority of 54 per cent. In Massachusetts three Republican govern¬ 
ors had recommended biennial sessions of the legislature, a Repub¬ 
lican legislature had submitted the question to the people, and the 
Republicans had actively championed it. The measure was defeated, 
but the Republicans were returned. Hundreds of other illustrations 
could be given. 

But under present conditions the voter has usually a choice of evils. 
The party machines, representing only the political wire-pullers, nomi¬ 
nate; the enthusiastic voter is drawn in by torchlight parades and 
violent harangues; the corrupt voter is bought; the unthinking voter 
is deluded; the intelligent voter is confused by the multiplicity of 
issues. Is it any wonder that wrong results? And after the election 
an issue not made in the campaign, though it may have been fore¬ 
seen by the leaders, comes up for the representative, and he decides 
it, though unable to know how his constituents would have him vote. 
From its very nature representation can not accurately represent the 
wishes of the people. 

(4) Representation fails because of the weakness of human nature 
and the concentration of corruption. A prominent member of a 
former New York legislature once told me that he was morally cer¬ 
tain that two-thirds of the members of that legislature had taken 
bribes, and he thought a majority of the remaining third would if they 
had had the chance. A member of a Michigan legislature told me 
that he could not stand it, and refused renomination, and his suc¬ 
cessor told him that he had made $16,000 out of his first session in the 
legislature. It is commonly said that the farmers in the New Jersey 
legislature, on a salary of $500, pay off the mortgages on their farms 
after one session. The commonly quoted price of Congressional votes 
for almost any project in the closing months of the Fifty-third Congress 
was $200 each, and in Colorado it was said that Populist members could 
be bought for $20 each and Republicans for $10 each. Lobbyists on 
the stand have testified that they could tell within a very small amount 
what it was necessary to raise to carry or defeat a measure. It is said 
that it took a quarter of a million to carry through the Chicago Com¬ 
mon Council in 1895 a franchise worth five million. But there is no 
S. Doc. 340-5 


66 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


further use in giving illustrations of what everyone at all conversant 
with our political life knows to be true. 

Then there is another form of corruption which, while not so rotten 
and disgusting, is just as effective in giving the people laws they 
don’t want or keeping from them laws they do want. You vote for 
my bill and I’ll vote for yours, logrolling. This may or may not be 
an immoral action, depending on the circumstances. Its results are 
misrepresentation. 

Another cause of misrepresentation is the carelessness of the law T - 
makers. I have seen United States laws passed through the House 
with but two persons voting on them; the rest were talking and pay¬ 
ing no attention. It would be a physical impossibility for each mem¬ 
ber of the New York legislature to even quickly read and understand 
each one of the 747 laws which passed its 1897 session, much less to 
thoroughly weigh them. The result is that unimportant measures, or 
ones seemingly so, are made up by one or two men and then slid 
through on the say so and quiet management of a few manipulators. 
Some of these are good laws; others contain a very serious nigger in 
the woodpile. The important laws are drafted under the direction of 
the boss and “jammed” through by his orders. 

The reasons for this corruption, logrolling, and carelessness are the 
concentration of corruption and the putting of the power in the hands 
of those who are not interested in its proper use. If I wanted to split 
a piece of wood I would be a fool to try to do it with my bare hand, 
but I would take a sharp knife and drive it in with a hammer; I’d 
concentrate the power into a point or edge and thus accomplish 
results which I could not do otherwise. Suppose a representative to 
be elected by a thousand votes and there were nine hundred against 
him. Few, if any, men can be bought by a dollar to do something 
contrary to their own interest; a few can be bought for $5 each, more 
for a hundred, and still more for a thousand each. Offer a dollar 
apiece to each one of these thousand voters and very few, if any, can 
be persuaded to vote something contrary to their own interest. Offer 
the thousand dollars to the man elected, and often he can be per¬ 
suaded. We concentrate the corruption and make it effective when 
we elect representatives with unlimited powers. The thousand dol¬ 
lars may be more than his salary; it is in New Jersej T and other States. 
Then the electors have to be persuaded to do something contrary to 
their own interests; it is not so often with the representative; he 
belongs to the “elevated classes,” and his interest may be opposed to 
that of the mass of the people, but in any event it is so slight that it 
is more than counterbalanced by the money or benefits received. It 
is very easy to conceal one payment of a thousand dollars, but it will 
be almost impossible to conceal a thousand payments of $1, and pub¬ 
licity will make this almost impossible. The representative may be 
paid with an office or with a retainer fee from a corporation if he is a 
lawyer, or in some other indirect way, or he may be bought before 
elected by a campaign fund or a nomination. It would be impossible 
to buy .the electors by these indirect ways. Then a representative is 
often influenced by plausible talkers and his vote bought, but with¬ 
out his knowing it or being really paid for it. One legislator told me 
that his pastor was influenced to come to him and try to persuade 
him to vote for a crooked bill. The good man did not know what he 
was asking till the legislator, who had made a study of that bill, 
showed him the concealed wrong, and if the legislator had not studied 
up on that measure he might have been easily persuaded. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


67 


They are careless because, as Hon. L. E. Rader, member of the 
Washington legislature, writes: “Imagine a good business man 
selecting a corps of clerks—in many cases without any regard for 
competency, honesty, or experience—all more or less unknown to 
each other, and expect them to conduct his business successfully! 
Add to this the further fact that said business man should demand 
that two years’ work be done in sixty or ninety days, with no power 
to annul or change the work done, and you have a sample of the 
average legislature. Candidly, what can the people expect from the 
workings of such a body?” 

The fifth reason why representation does not represent can best be 
expressed by a quotation from a recent number of the Outlook: 

A single man, known as “ a boss,” nominates the members of the representa¬ 
tive body. The electors go to the polls simply to ratify his choice. The repre¬ 
sentatives so elected represent, not the electors, but the “ boss.” They are a very 
loyal body of men, but loyal, of course to the “ boss ” who has given them their 
offices. They are very faithful to the interests which have been intrusted to 
them, but these interests are those of the “boss.” If new questions arise they 
consult their constituency, but their constituency is not the men who have voted 
for them because their names were on the “ regular tickets,” but the “boss” who 
put them on the “ regular ticket.” If it happens that their nominal constituents 
wish anything done or not done, they bestir themselves, frame petitions, organize 
mass meetings, and appoint committees, who humbly beg their supposed repre¬ 
sentatives to give them a hearing. Sometimes the hearing is accorded, sometimes 
refused. Sometimes the petition is read, and sometimes it is thrown into the 
wastebasket. 

The Philadelphia Ledger has said editorially: 

In Philadelphia the municipal government is of, for, and by the practical poli¬ 
ticians who make of politics a trade, in the pursuit of which they prosper exceed¬ 
ingly. The ward combine is an organization which selects municipal officers, 
though not of its own free will, but in accordance with the orders of the so called 
leaders, who are practical politicians and who, by making politics their business, 
reap rewards of their enterprise. The members of the ward combine, obeyin'g 
instructions of their political masters, determine who shall and who shall not be 
the candidates of the party of the majority. 

And so for this reason representation does not represent. 

What is the remedy? It was suggested by Alexander Contee Han¬ 
son, when he spoke of “preserving the dependence of the greatest on 
the people,” and by Richard Henry Lee* when he said: 

A free and enlightened people in forming this compact will not resign all their 
rights to those who govern, and they will fix limits to their legislators ana rulers 
which wifi soon be plainly seen by those who are governed as well as by those who 
govern. 

It consists in going back to the people and putting the power into 
their hands through direct legislation, which consists of the initiative 
and referendum. By the referendum no law goes into effect for a 
reasonable time, say ninety days for a State, and if during that time 
a reasonable minority of the people, say 5 per cent, sign a petition to 
have the matter referred to the people, it is held till the next election, 
and the people vote on it, a majority accepting or rejecting. By the 
initiative a reasonable minority of the people, by signing a petition 
for a law, can force the legislative body to take action on it, and if 
that action is not favorable, then it goes to a vote of the people, and 
a majority accepts or rejects. This does not do away with the repre¬ 
sentative body, but it makes each of their acts capable of review by 
the people, and it enables the people to force action on a law. 

How does it remedy the five evils of' representation? First: All of 
the people vote on these measures, not men of the “elevated classes 


68 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

only.” Thus the people themselves, who know their own wants and 
needs better than anyone else, will finally decide. 

Second and third: Each issue will be decided by itself and also the 
method or law to carry that issue into effect. Political misrepre¬ 
sentation could be remedied by proportional representation, but direct 
legislation secures a far finer decision from the people, as it enables 
each voter to decide on each issue as it comes up, provided a reason¬ 
able minority wish for such a decision. 

Fourth: It will kill corruption in politics, and I have two quotations 
which are very apt here. James Russell Lowell has said: 

The more I learn, the more my confidence in the general good sense and honest 
intention of mankind increases. 

And the Earl of Derby says: 

I have come to think more and more highly of the moderation, the fairness, and 
the general justice which the masses of men, including all conditions of life, are 
disposed to use. 

These two men represent the very highest opinion of the “ elevated 
classes ” on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Fifth: It will kill the power of the “boss” by rendering it impos¬ 
sible for him to deliver the goods without the consent of the people. 

I want no better summary of its reasons and advantages than the 
century-old words of Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, who was a 
member of the Constitutional Convention: 

Man is born free and possessed of certain inalienable rights; government is insti¬ 
tuted for the safety and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor, or 
private interest of any man, family, or class of men; the origin of all power is in 
the people, and they have an incontestable right to check the creatures of their 
own creation vested with certain powers to guard the life, liberty, and property 
of the community. And if certain selected leaders of men, deputed on these prin¬ 
ciples, determine contrary to the wishes and expectations of their constituents, the 
people have an undoubted right to reject their decisions, to call for a revision of 
their conduct, to depute others in their room, and, if they think proper, to demand 
further time for deliberation on matters of the greatest moment. 

No. 7.— February , 1898. 

SOME TRADE-UNION WITNESSES TO DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

G. W. Perkins, president Cigarmakers’ International Union of 
America: 

To my mind it is a plain proposition that those who have a voice in making the 
laws are bound to have more respect for them and live with greater contentment 
and satisfaction under them than they would if they had no say. I hold this true 
even if better laws were otherwise made. Possibly the case of Ireland is a fair 
illustration of my meaning. If Ireland were to make its own laws and had perfect 
autonomy there would be greater satisfaction there and contentment even if the 
economic condition of the masses were no better than at present. 

In our case the members make the law themselves, and it enables the executive 
to say: “ These are your own laws; you helped to make them.” Result: There is 
no serious fault-finding against our laws. The referendum in our association is 
almost as old as the association itself, and we have had both the initiative and 
referendum in full force since about 1880. 

The decisions arrived at under the referendum are very good, and the amount of 
intelligence and discretion displayed in voting is remarkable. I certainly would 
favor its extension to political life. I hold that the initiative and referendum is 
also a great educational factor. These questions being submitted bring about 
discussion, and even the most dull are compelled to listen to argument and to at 
least think of them. The result is a constant raising of the standard of intelli¬ 
gence of our membership. I hold that the organized cigarmakers of this country, 
chiefly through this policy of the initiative and referendum, are better prepared and 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


69 


able to maintain self-government, etc., than any other craftsmen in this country. 

In my opinion, the rank and file of our organization would not tolerate an 
amendment which abrogated the initiative and referendum. 

Henry Lloyd, of Boston, Mass., general president of the United 
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America: 

For s?me seven or eight years I have been a firm believer and hard worker for 
the initiative and referendum. With the corruption in our great parties and the 
tremendous influences for evil brought to bear upon our governing bodies by the 
great corporations and their agents I feel that our democracy is a sham. And I 
believe that our institutions can only be saved while the rights of the masses are 
fully protected by direct legislation. 

W. B. Prescott, president International Typographical Union, in 
his annual report in 1896: 

I can not refrain from submitting as an all-sufficient answer to those who argue 
that the referendum is inefficient that though conventions at various periods 
adopted strike-bexxefit laws the membership paid no heed whatever until the pres¬ 
ent law was adopted by popular vote. The same is true of all other international 
laws; those securing popular approval on a general vote are the ones most readily 
obeyed and easily enforced. As practiced with us, representative government, 
even though the convention’s functions are reduced almost to those of a delibera¬ 
tive body, is a farce, many unions being financially unable to*support a delegate, 
and the larger ones being apportioned such a small number of delegates that it is 
possible for four unions of seven members each to thwart the wishes of our largest 
subordinate body, numbering thousands of members. To place the delegatorial 
voting power on the number of members represented would give the larger unions 
such an overwhelming predominance that the interests of the smaller ones would 
be lost sight of. Even then the delegate’s views can not be taken as expressive of 
those of whom he represents. History demonstrates that unions enthusiastically 
support measures which its delegation opposed and vice versa, and sometimes the 
delegation was acting under instructions. The common sense, economical, and 
business-like manner of solving this problem is to invest the initiative in the mem¬ 
bership, making it the lawmaker and supervisor of its affairs directly and not 
attempt to do it through an effete and nonsensical system of representatives and 
proxies. If the International Union will afford the initiative and referendum a 
trial, which the great majority of us approve of as a principle in civil law, I 
venture the prediction that like praise will be vouchsafed us in the far-distant 
future. 

W. S. Carter, editor of the Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine: * 

Whenever people are represented in legislative matters, either by individual 
persons or political parties, they are necessarily disfranchised in all questions 
upon which there exists a difference of opinion between themselves and such per¬ 
sons oi’ parties representing them. For instance, a voter may favor a protective 
tariff Mid at the same time may favor the free coinage of silver. The Democratic 
platform and candidates during the last campaign were pledged for the free coin¬ 
age of silver, but were opposed to a protective tariff. The Republican party 
favored a protective tariff, but were opposed to the free coinage of silver. Thus, 
when a voter cast a ballot favoring a Democratic candidate, he exercised his fran¬ 
chise in favor of free coinage, but defeated his object so far as protection was 
concerned, if he was in favor of a protective tariff. If he had voted the Repub¬ 
lican ticket, he would have exercised his franchise on the question of tariff, but 
would have stultified himself so far as his desires for free coinage of silver were 
concerned. Direct legislation would provide for the enfranchisement of all voters 
on all subjects and at all times. 

When the people are represented in legislative matters, either by individual 
persons or by political parties, they are often betrayed by such representatives. 
Legislative action and special privileges are bought and sold to-day as commodi¬ 
ties. Direct legislation would immediately and effectually prevent such legisla¬ 
tive corruption—representatives would no longer sell legislation or special privi¬ 
leges, because there would be no buyers; lobbyists would no longer purchase 
legislation, because representatives could no longer “deliver the goods;” dis¬ 
honest men would cease to buy legislative positions, because their dishonesty 
could not bring them revenue in such positions; special privileges could not be 
bought when only obtainable through direct legislation. 


70 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

John B. Lennon, general secretary of the Journeymen Tailors of 
America, treasurer and member of executive committee A. F. of L.: 

To me the referendum appears as the one reform upon which all reformers 
should be able to unite for political action, as with it in force all the various 
schools of reformers would have the opportunity to place before the people their 
particular theory for settlement by the suffrages of the citizens. The great trade 
unions of America have worked under the referendum system of legislation for 
some years. The cigar makers probably have it the most completely, covering 
all matters of legislation and administration. 

In my own union at first only about 10 per cent voted, but practice caused dis¬ 
cussion, and education followed, until we now receive a vote on questions sub¬ 
mitted ranging from 40 to 75 per cent of all members. Our union has been 
strengthened by the system, our members enlightened, and the legislation secured 
has been highly satisfactory. At this time but few trades unionists can be found 
opposed to it. Applied to the States, I believe the result would be the same— 
better and more enlightened government. 

DIRECT LEGISLATION THE WORKINGMEN’S ISSUE. 


[By Eltweed Pomeroy, President National Direct Legislation League.] 

No great political improvement, no great reform, either legislative or executive, 
has ever been originated in any country by its rulers.—(Buckle.) 

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.—(Abraham Lincoln.) 

No reform, moral or intellectual, ever came from the upper classes of society. 
Each and all came from the protest of the martyr and victim. The emancipation 
of the working people must be achieved by the working people themselves.— 
(Wendell Phillips.) 

Democracy lias its birth and its home among the common people. 
They constitute democracy, the great central fact of this nineteenth 
century and destined in the twentieth century to have a fuller scope, 
a grander mission, than mere politics. Educate in literature and 
book knowledge, polish and varnish a man to the highest point, and 
you are apt to refine the human out of him and center his sympathies 
on himself and his class. But down among the common people, of 
whom the great Lincoln said, “God must have loved them; he made 
so many of them,” burns the inextinguishable flame of sympathy and 
human love. Oft it is dimmed by ignorance or hidden under a rough 
exterior. At times it blazes violently forth, scorching and injuring 
the framework of society. And again it sinks incrusted and dim to 
a feeble glimmer, and the scientist, perched on some dizzy height of 
knowledge, says it is out because, forsooth, he can not see it %r feel 
it in his rarefied altitude. But all the time, little recognized, it is 
giving warmth and light and hope to the masses of mankind. 

Direct legislation is the political ultima thule of democracy, the 
farthest point to which it can go in purely political methods. It has 
its roots in the dim past, in the agora or market place of the Greek 
and Latin cities, vdiere the citizens assembled to transact their busi¬ 
ness, each with an equal voice and vote, and in the open-air Landes- 
gemeinde of early Teutonic times, of which Tacitus says: 

The chiefs assemble, except in cases of sudden emergency, on certain fixed days. 
When the multitude think proper they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by 
the priests, who have, on these occasions, the right of keeping order. Then the 
king or chief, according to age, birth, distinction, or eloquence, is heard, more 
because he has influence to persuade than because he has power to command. 
If his sentiments displease them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are 
satisfied, they brandish their spears. 

It has flowered out in the New England town meeting, the United 
States Constitution, with its provision for amendment by referendum, 
in Switzerland and in many other places and forms. It is as easy to 


71 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

understand as tlie simplest parliamentary forms and as workable. 
Where a body of men meet to deliberate and act, some one man rises 
and says: “I move so and so.” And another seconds the motion. 
That is the initiative under which a reasonable minorh^of the people, 
perhaps 5 per cent, say, by a suitably signed petition, “We move so 
and so.” Perhaps in this body of men the motion is referred to a com¬ 
mittee with power to act or directing them to report after further 
investigation. That is sending the matter to the legislature, and if the 
legislature doesn’t pass it, it goes to a vote of the people, which is 
the referendum. Or suppose the legislature takes some action the 
people don’t like, then a suitable minority, perhaps 5 per cent, says 
by a signed petition, “We want this matter referred to the people,” 
and a referendum is had on it. Direct legislation is simply carrying 
out on a larger scale and by the use of petition the common-sense 
parliamentary methods in use in almost every body of men. It is a 
method of getting democracy. 

W endell Phillips says: “No reform, moral or intellectual, ever came 
from the upper class of society.” This reform did not start in Boston, 
the Athens of America, where our isms first see the light. It was not 
concocted secretly in some committee room for the benefit of some 
political party, a conspiracy against the common weal. It has not 
been pushed by a syndicate of newspapers working in the interests of 
some great corporation to blind the people’s eyes against legalized 
stealing. It has not behind it a secret and oath-bound organization, 
appealing to either sectional or religious prejudice or pride. It has 
not behind it any trade or business interest which it will benefit at the 
expense of the people. It does not come from one section of our broad 
land as a geographical measure. It is not a sad and bitter legacy of 
the civil war. It comes from the people—the great common people, 
who are greater than any cult, or party, or syndicate, or section, or 
prejudice. This is its present weakness, but its future great strength. 
If there was a job in it, or some office or pay for some man or set of 
men, it would be widely advocated in the blatant manner that paid 
advocates use. There is no money in it for any man or set of men. 
And the people have been slowly but surely making up their minds 
on it. They do not all know of it j^t. The names initiative and ref¬ 
erendum are not clearly defined in the minds of all. But where they 
do know of it they advocate it. This is its great future strength. 

Oh, workingmen! In the broad and noble sense of that really noble 
word, politics, you have got to go into politics. In the sense that 
Washington called himself a politician, although he belonged to no 
party, so each one of you have got to be politicians. If you don’t you 
will find that, while you are fighting for some trivial trade affair, the 
weightier matters have been secretly won, so that future trade battles 
are almost sure failures. While you are settling the standing of some 
foreman in a shop, you will find that monarchy has been revived in 
this country—not monarchy in name, perhaps, but when one man 
sitting as a judge can make injunctions which govern you by laws 
not of your own making, then you have a one-man power, and that is 
monarchy, whether the ruler is called a king or a judge. You will 
find that franchises which belong to the whole people have been 
bought from venal councils and legislatures for a tithe of their value, 
and that the price paid goes into the pockets, not of the people, but 
of the criminal sellers. You are bound by their actions. You will 
find that monopolies have intrenched themselves behind legal enact¬ 
ments so firmly that their reign will be lengthened for years. You 


72 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


have got to go into politics, or you will find that your life will be 
hemmed in within closer and closer limits until you become serfs and 
not freemen. Delay not too long. 

Wendell Phillips says of reforms that “each and all came from the 
protest of the martyr and the victim.” Oh, workingmen! The little 
children cry to you from the crowded tenement house, factory, and 
rushing store. They lower the men’s rate of wages, and, what is worse, 
it lowers the grade of the men and women to be. Can you regulate 
child labor by law? You’ve tried it and had a pretense, but nothing 
thorough. Why? Because it is the interest of some manufacturers 
to employ children; it is the interest of some landlords to shut out 
light and air from the dwellings of the poor, and they own or bribe 
the lawmakers. The women who are your sisters and wives, and who 
are to be the mothers of the future, are overwrought and overworked. 
They call to you for help and too frequently sink into that hell on 
earth, the brothel. How almost impossible it is to get any legislation 
to remedy this, because it means less profits to some corporation. 
The men who are your brothers, toiling in the sweat shops or in the 
mills, tagged with a number like slaves, or penned behind Pullman’s 
or Homestead’s silent walls, or working for $10 to $20 a month in the 
coal mines, demand relief, but some corporate interest bars the way. 
Another squeeze of some new combination or trust is made on wages, 
and when the squeezing gets beyond a certain point any more means 
lifeblood. In many places that point has been long past. Is the 
protest of the martyr and victim yet loud enough? 

Representative government was both democratic and republican 
when it was established in this country. But the world has made 
progress. We were then in the ox-cart period. It took a week to go 
from Washington to New York. It now takes five hours. It took 
months for the result of a Presidential election to be fully known. 
It is now known the next day, if not the same night. But with the 
progress of time and invention came the development of concentrated 
wealth and of great organizations controlling it, and this wealth and 
these organizations have touched the vital fault in the representative 
system; they have corrupted the men who have unrestrained power. 
You give them that unrestrained power during their term of office. 
Stop it; and you can stop it by direct legislation. 

So to-day we do not have a democratic government. We do not 
have a republican government. We have a corporation and wealth 
government. We have a government that, instead of revealing moral 
worth, brings the scum to the top. We have a government that, 
instead of being an inspiration, is a degradation. We have a govern¬ 
ment that, instead of leading progress, is behind and clogs advance. 
We have a government which, instead of being the servant of the peo¬ 
ple, is their master. Your future as workingmen, as citizens, is bound 
up with legislation, with government. You have got to go into poli¬ 
tics; you have got to make our government self-government through 
direct legislation, instead of government by others, or else—I will not 
think of the reverse. 

“ The emancipation of the working people must be achieved by the 
working people themselves,” says Wendell Phillips. 

You believe this. The very fact of your organizing for your own 
benefit, without asking the help or permission of the upper class, is 
clear evidence of it. If you did not believe it, then you would not be 
in a trade union; you’d be sniveling on your knees for help from the 
upper class; you’d be crying aloud to a paternal government for asy- 


73 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

lums and homes. But you are men. You believe that the salvation, 
the emancipation, the hope of the working class is in the working class 
itself. The patent and manifest witness of the truth of Wendell 
Phillips’s words is in your many trades and labor organizations. You 
do not go into these that some of your members may be lifted out of 
the class of workingmen into some supposedly higher and better class, 
but you belong to them in the spirit of Lincoln when he said: 6 ‘As I 
would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.” You meet; in them 
as equals, as peers, to discuss, decide, and act for the good of all. 
Self-reliant, standing firmly facing the future, you consider yourselves 
capable of such discussion, decision, and action, and when it is over 
you will go back to the bench and forge and workshop. You consider 
that you are capable of these actions in your trade matters; you con¬ 
sider that each individual is capable on matters which concern him¬ 
self alone to decide and act for himself; you consider that each local 
union is capable on matters which concern itself alone of like action; 
that each national trade can settle the affairs of that trade for itself. 
You would consider it a tyranny if your A. F. of L., unasked for, 
should try to settle a purely trade affair. Follow but one step fur¬ 
ther. Do you not consider that the people of the nation have a right 
to decide themselves on the national affairs, and that they are capable 
of it? Are not the people of the State of New York capable, and is it 
not their right to decide on purely New York State affairs? Does 
not the same apply to the city of New York, and to every town and 
village and hamlet in the land? You can not be a believer in trades 
unions unless you believe this also. Every true trades unionist is a 
democrat at heart—not a member of the Democratic party. Faugh! 
But we won’t let a political organization appropriate a noble name to 
drag it in the mire. You are democrats. You constitute the mass of 
the people. You are the people. You must work out your own sal¬ 
vation, and yon can only do it politically through direct legislation. 
Hence it is peculiarly your issue, the workingman’s issue. You have 
made it one of your main political demands. It is yours. 

And when it is put into operation, when it allows the now dumb, 
inarticulate, and stifled voice of the great common people an outlet, 
when it has trained that voice in expression, then will the spirit of 
God, moving on the face of the earth, have an instrument more subtle, 
more powerful, more sympathetic, more sweet and true and glorious 
to reveal* mankind unto itself, and to reveal, as Mazzini says, that— 

There is something greater, more divinely mysterious, than all great men, and 
that is the earth which bears them, the human race which includes them, the 
thought of God which stirs within them, and which the whole human race col¬ 
lectively can alone accomplish. 

No. 8.— March , 1898. 

SOME SWISS AUTHORITIES ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

Hon. Karl Burkly, councilor of Zurich, veteran Swiss reformer (in 
his seventy-fifth year), called the Father of the Referendum: 

Social reform is condemned to remain in a state of theory until the right means 
are found to put it into practice, and these means can be above all no other than 
that the laws shall be made by the voice of the people and not according to the 
wishes of the privileged few. The political fulcrum is wanted to the social lever, 
wherewith society may lift from off its hinges the old form of society with its 
poverty of the masses and its individual wealth. 

The history of the world abundantly proves that the law is only a written ex¬ 
pression of the interest of the lawgiver. In a real democracy, wherein direct leg¬ 
islation gives into the people’s hands the instrument of perpetual motion and the 


74 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC 


path for constant peaceful revolution lies open before it, the people will create 
new forms and laws not according to preconceived social theories, but according 
to real wants as they make themselves felt, and it will make its will prevail, as in 
Switzerland, by a stroke of the pen and no longer by firearms and bloody revolu¬ 
tions. 

Hon. Theodore Curti, national councilor (corresponds to United 
States Senator), head of group of extreme left in Federal Assembly, 
historian, etc.: 

The referendum works well in a great crisis. He mistakes who thinks the peo¬ 
ple will systematically reject proposed laws and that this obstructionist feeling 
will prevent their distinguishing good laws from bad ones. 

After the practice of the referendum the people possess a great treasury of 
knowledge. A great question now looms all over the world: Shall legislation now 
and in the future be in the hands of representatives who can not escape the danger 
of defending their own interests and becoming a new privileged class, or shall it 
be the work of the people all together and express their intelligence, aspirations, 
and demands? 

A parliament can never give to the people that feeling of unity which comes 
with the referendum. The citizens of Grisons, which is a confederation of com¬ 
munes, say: “ The referendum has made one people of us.” One can not imagine 
a more close communion among people than this act has brought about, in which 
each participates. See how the Canton of St. Gall has been solidified by the union 
of classes the most diverse and opposite historically and geographically. The 
common voting develops a public conscience. Switzerland unites m its blood an 
astonishing number of antagonisms, but everyone allows that these have been 
leveled by the referendum and that legislation by the people has brought us all to 
feel as one people. 

Prof. Louis Waurin, professor of sociology in the University of 
Geneva, Switzerland: 

The cantonal and municipal application of the referendum, the right of popular 
initiative, and, above all, the introduction of proportional representation, are elo¬ 
quent elements of political righteousness at Geneva. 

Hon. Numa Droz, ex-President Swiss Republic, economist and 
author: 

Under the influence of the referendum a profound change has come over the 
spirit both of parliament and people. The idea of employer and employed, of 
sender and sent, which lies at the root of the representative system, becomes 
an absolute reality. The people still choose their representatives to make their 
law's, but they reserve the right of sanction. The craftsman carries out the work 
to his own satisfaction; the employer who gave the order is of different opinion 
and sends it back to be altered. It is perfectly simple; each has done his duty 
within the limits assigned to him; there is no gwound for quarrel. The legislator 
is not discredited; he is only in the position of a deputy whose bill is not passed. 
There is no question of resigning. If here and there a measure is rejected, others 
are passed; there is clearly no w r ant of confidence. Moreover, after rejecting a 
law, it is quite common to reelect the same representatives. * * * 

The people have generally shown themselves wiser than the meddling politi¬ 
cians. who have tried to draw them into systematic opposition. If now and then 
they have voted under the influence of obvious ill humor w T ith their representa¬ 
tives, they have, on the other hand, more than once given the agitator clearly to 
understand that he had no chance with them. The net result has been a great 
tranquilizing of public life. When the ballot has pronounced, everybody accepts 
the result. Those who make the most noise can not impose on the people as they 
do in other countries: they are taken for w T hat they are really worth. Adapted to 
a people fundamentally democratic like the Swiss, the referendum is unquestion¬ 
ably one of the best forms of government ever attempted. It may be thought 
good to modify it in accordance with the suggestions of experience, but there can 
never again be any question of doing av 7 ay wffth it. 

Hon. C. Descurtins, national councillor (corresponds to United 
States Senator), president Swiss Catholic Workingmen’s Association, 
delegate to 1897 international congress for labor legislation: 

The prominent place wrhich Switzerland occupies among European nations is 
more closely connected with her democratic form of government than would 


75 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

seem from a superficial view. If Switzerland is at the head of all European 
countries in labor legislation and if anarchism has nowhere such a smali number 
of followers, direct legislation by the people is to be thanked. By it the working 
class can defend their just claims and be able to obtain the legitimate protection 
which is the best safeguard of social peace. 

Dr. Charles Borgeaud, lecturer on Swiss constitutional history in 
the University of Geneva, author of Adoption and Amendment of 
Constitutions, etc.: 

In the world of thought contemporary Switzerland has become an important 
power. 

Men have seen in the heart of Europe the rise and persistence of a democratic 
state sufficiently large to furnish the world with an example which may be quoted 
with advantage, which is being quoted every day. Evidence is being furnished 
to socie.ies which are profoundly moved by the spirit of modern progress. 

The Swiss peasant, journeying to the next village in his Sunday garb to deposit 
his “Yes’' or “No” in the urn at the schoolhouse, would shake his head incredu- 
1 ously if told that his act may have an interest for men outside of his own country, 
living far away beyond the mountains. Yet such is the case. The old historic 
nations are marching one after the other or are preparing to march toward de¬ 
mocracy, like the co umnsof an army slowly advancing into an unknown country. 
This peasant is a scout of the advance guard of this army. 

Democracy, as has been said, is more than a form of government; it is a state of 
society. It is a state toward which all contemporary nations are tending by a 
seemingly inevitable law of evolution. Some have already reached it and are 
making for themselves and for others the difficult experiment of popular govern¬ 
ment. Others are marching toward it more or less rapidly. Fina ly, others are 
held back by the force of their mediaeval traditions or by their imperfect civiliza¬ 
tion, but all are fatally drawn on toward it by the conquests of science and indus¬ 
try, by the annihilation of space, by the diffusion of knowledge, by all that which 
constitutes modern progress. 

J. Solari, editor in chief of Le Precurseur, of Geneva, Switzerland: 

Direct legislation in Switzerland has the merit of clearness. It has freed the peo¬ 
ple trom many obscurities directly maintained by the cantonal and federal govern¬ 
ments, sometimes by interested officials and exaggerated suggestions. 

It has the merit of uniting within reasonable limits the diverging tendencies of 
separate committees in a sound and mutual brotherhood. 

It tends to unite all classes on the same basis of physical, intellectual, and moral 
culture without regard to past rank. It thus bears the first fruits of peace and 
social welfare and of federal equality, the forerunner of individual equality. 

It has the great merit of preventing, through its power of regulating wages, 
serious labor wars—collisions which are fruitful of reactions and dangerous to 
public liberty. 

Finally, it has the supreme merit of making possible and feasible, through the 
voicing of public opinion, an evolution, a development of humanitarian sentiment, 
whose active realization to-day seems almost impossible. 

Hon. Jacques Gross, orator and author: 

Direct legislation is not a principle; far from it. It is an instrument, a mani¬ 
festation, a means of peaceful revolution. It is provisional, the preliminary to 
other reforms, the method for the common people. It is likely the channel for the 
development of the social mind, the destruction of the old physical and moral 
society, a guide to the evolution of evolutions, the collective sovereignty, “the 
parliament of man, the federation of the world.” It is a moving bridge, a plank 
of safety, by which we shall pass from the wreck of the present to the firm land 
of the future. It is the alphabet of liberty put into the hands of oppressed slaves, 
the common school of a society yet in its infancy. 

DIRECT LEGISLATION AND LEGISLATORS. 


[By Eltweed Pomeroy, President National Direct Legislation League.j 

Legislation, government—it is the noblest career. (Charles Dudley Warner.) 
The most powerful and perhaps the only means of interesting men in the wel¬ 
fare of the country is to make them partakers in the government. (Alexis de 
Tocqueville.) 


76 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

The liberty of the people depends entirely on the constant and direct communi¬ 
cation between them and the legislature. (John Adams.) 

The foundation of English liberty and of all free government is the right in the 
people to participate in their legislative councils. (Declaration of Rights of Colo¬ 
nial Congress of 1774, Sec. 4.) 

Few men are bold enough nowadays to assert that the will of a nation may be 
absorbed in that of an individual. But it is still asserted that it is necessarily 
identical with that of representatives or delegates chosen by universal suffrage. 
Contemporar}’- experience most abundantly disproves this theory. A healthy 
democracy demands that its representatives initiate their constituents as far as 
possible into a knowledge of their labors. It wishes them to be political educators 
of the people. It does not wish them ever to become its masters. As soon as the 
popular vote can be realized under normal conditions, it ceases to be a source of 
agitation. (Dr. Charles Borgeand, of the University of Geneva.) 

Legislators are selected to do the noblest work a man can be called 
upon to do—to fix the conditions under which the social organism 
lives and grows and the relations of the individual to it and each other. 

Administration is honorable, but the executive administers the 
laws the legislative makes and is subject and subordinate in the long 
run. It is a present duty and, save for an occasional slight accretion 
of precedent, passes out of sight. The legislative work endures; it 
builds not for to-day or to-morrow, but for all time. 

The judicial, in the rare cases in which it is not deciding whether 
individuals have broken the law and what the correction should be, 
is simply stating what the law the legislative makes is—interpreting 
it. It can not make law save when it violates its prerogatives and 
does legislative functions. The judicial is even more dependent on 
the legislative than the executive, which carries out its judgments. 
Of the three—the legislative, executive, and judicial—the legislative is 
the most important and the noblest. 

Our legislatures are housed in beautiful buildings, the product of 
municipal, State, and national reverence for this noble function; they 
are guarded from physical violence and armed coercion; they are sur¬ 
rounded by a stately code of rules and beautiful customs, guarantee¬ 
ing freedom of debate and ample deliberation; their proceedings are 
fully reported and carefully preserved. But these are only evidences 
of past regard embalmed in law and custom. What do the people 
think of them now? If the old-time regard has faded from the popu¬ 
lar mind, as surely as night follows day will these stately surround¬ 
ings be undermined and crumble into decay. Such decay of popular 
reverence will be a sure sign that legislation has ceased to be the 
noblest function of the social organism and has become either the 
mock of the strongest arm or the tool of tyranny. 

It is a fact that this reverence is changing to a feeling of disgust 
and dread. This is not an argument or a wish; I wish it^vere not so. 
But everyone familiar with current political thought knows it. It is 
often felt a disgrace to be an alderman or city councilor; the average 
citizen thinks it impossible to be an alderman and an honest man. It 
is shown by the bad meaning which has degraded that good old word 
of politician. Washington called himself a politician. Who would 
now attach that word to his honored name? 

It is shown by the cessation from political activity and interest of 
many of our best citizens. They think that politics is too dirty to 
touch. This is true not only of our educated and wealthy classes, 
but many workingmen who have disinterestedly tried for remedies 
through political action often say that nothing is to be hoped for 
there and that the workingman must organize and light for his rights. 
In recent municipal elections in about twenty-live of the largest cities 


77 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

less than half the voters voted, and in some the percentage was less 
than 30. A few years ago a governor in Georgia was elected when 
only 9 per cent of the vote was cast. 

It is shown by the spread of biennial sessions of State legislatures. 
Nearly three-fourths of the States have them, and many States limit 
the sessions to sixty or ninety days. The people say, “We’ll save 
half the expense, worry, and disgrace.” 

It is shown by the oft-repeated statements that the country only 
has rest when Congress is not in session. This was wittily voiced by 
the elder Beecher when he prayed: “Lord, keep us from despising 
our rulers, and, Lord, keep them from behaving so that we can’t 
help it.” 

It is shown by what Harper’s Weekly calls “the practical break¬ 
down of our legislative system. It has ceased to be a representative 
system.” And it continues: 

There is a general agreement throughout the country that legislators were never 
before so careless in the framing of laws; so ignorant as to the fundamental prin¬ 
ciples of government; so open to corrupt influences. 

Finally, everyone who has been prominent in politics knows of 
mud slinging, knows that they have been accused, at times by those 
of their own party, of dishonesty, of corruption, of trickery. How 
the sensitive ones have writhed and twisted under it! How the oft- 
unmerited lash of these libels has stung the most callous! How this 
has acted as a sieve to sift out all but the most callous and corrupt 
from long political career! How wives and mothers and friends have 
questioned and felt that when there was so much smoke there must 
be some fire! 

There is fire. Men have been skillfully manipulated on the weakest 
side, their vanity has been flattered, glittering possibilities of place, 
power, influence, fortune have been held out, political destruction 
has been the alternative, and they have yielded. Not as many as is 
popularly thought, I hope and believe, but some, and that there are 
any is justification of the popular feeling. Legislators should be 
like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion. At present they are all under 
suspicion. 

Everyone knows the reason. The lobby seeks things the people 
would not give them. It is underhand and Avorks secretly. It studies 
each lawmaker and surrounds him with subtle allurements, con¬ 
tinually draAving them tighter, till he is landed; and if his power is 
destroyed, it pays with unredeemed promises. Often it does not 
openly corrupt, but plies him wfith specious arguments till finally he 
yields. This is the subtlest and finest form of corruption, requires 
more brains, but costs less than coarse bribery and leaves no trail of 
bargain and sale. When a lobby finds a man clear-sighted enough to 
see through their false arguments and courageoiis enough to fight 
them, they hound him out of politics and often out of his profession 
or business. 

The lobby wants new men, whom they can pay with irredeemable 
promises, and to get rid of the old ones, who might become clamorous 
and rebel; the people instinctively feel that the average legislator’s 
virtue can not stand a long siege. So these two forces have joined to 
establish the almost universal custom of not more than two sessions 
for any legislator. Thus the people are deprived of the benefits of 
experience in the exercise of the most important function of the body 
politic. 


78 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


These feelings of disgust and hopelessness in the people, this mias¬ 
matic atmosphere of bribery surrounding councils, statehouses, and 
Congress, with limitless possibilities of corruption, this certainty of 
ignorance, carelessness, and verbosity in lawmaking, are slowly but 
surely undermining the whole fabric of our political life. It has gone 
dangerously far. Let it proceed unchecked, and some time in the not 
distant future, at some inconsequential shock, our representative 
system will crumble as the “insubstantial fabric of a dream.” How 
can this be remedied? 

Direct legislation is the scientific method of getting the voice of 
the people on measures—not on men. By the referendum no law 
save a strictly defined class of urgent measures can go into effect 
under a fixed time, say sixty days for State matters; if during this 
time a part of the voters, say 5 per cent, signs a petition for its refer¬ 
ence to the people, it is held from operation till the next election, 
when the people vote on it, a majority accepting or rejecting. By 
the initiative a part of the voters, say 5 per cent, by signing a peti¬ 
tion for a law, can force the lawmaking body to consider it and, if 
the law is not passed by that body, the people to vote on it and enact 
it or drop it. 

How does direct legislation concern the honest legislator and remedy 
the present evils in legislation ? 

It destroys the power for evil of the lobby. Who will buy the leg¬ 
islator when he can not deliver the goods ? It will be no use to bribe 
him, as a majority of the people will have to be bribed afterwards. 
It puts the legislator above suspicion. Lobbyists can not threaten an 
honest man with charges of corruption, and by the use of a venal press 
actually, as has been done, blast the reputation and future of the unse- 
ducible. It makes the legislator responsible directly to the people for 
each act passed and not responsible in a lump for his whole political 
career and the deeds, past and prospective, of his political party. It 
deposes him from the quagmire-surrounded and perilous position of a 
shifting oligarchy of temporary despots of the people, but raises him 
to the nobler eminence of counselor to the people. 

It takes from the lobby its power for evil, but leaves it free to use 
all honorable means to bring laws to the vote of the people; hence it 
will change the lobby from a corrupter to an educator. Likewise it 
will destroy partisanism in our political parties, forcing them to be¬ 
come advocates of measures instead of seekers after power and place 
under party shibboleths, as now. It will kill off the boss in parties, 
who requires blind allegiance to himself, else he will not permit party 
promotion, and substitute for the boss the leadership of brains and 
character in the advocacy of measures and in the service of the people. 
It will thus change parties from a dam which stops and stagnates the 
people’s will into the channels which conduct it easily and quickly on 
its course. 

It will stop the mud slinging with which every public man is assailed, 
as it will place his motives beyond suspicion. The legislator can snap 
his fingers at calumniators and say, “ Bring it before the public.” At 
present corruption is so secret and insidious that denials are almost 
useless. The legislator sits and cringes under them and says, “It’s 
a lie,” while the people believe at least a part. Register by direct 
legislation a permanent appeal to the Caesar of the great common peo¬ 
ple against corruption of motive and mud slinging will receive its 
deathblow. 

Many able and honest citizens who now fear this mud slinging and 
who are unwilling to don the bosses’ yoke will be ready to take office 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


79 


that they may have a platform to speak from and may advocate meas¬ 
ures for the public. Thus the people will have a better class of men 
to select candidates from. 

Lastly, it will enfranchise every citizen on individual measures. At 
present he votes for a man who pledges himself to aid his party to 
carry through a group of often ambiguously worded planks. Suppose 
the candidate is elected and a majority of the same party; suppose 
the planks are clearly worded and clearly understood by the elected 
candidates; suppose the legislators are not only honest but able to 
draw clear, simple laws; suppose no boss or lobby intervenes to 
smother or pervert measures; suppose no new issue is sprung to side¬ 
track the old and the legislature passes the various measures. Such 
a combination is extremely improbable, but if it should ever happen 
the voter, while getting some measures which he favors, will get others 
which he is totally opposed to. But direct legislation will enfranchise 
the citizen on individual measures. People now think it is one of two 
machines which makes the laws. I have heard it in labor unions and 
in the homes of the rich. 

It will recall the better class of citizens to an interest in politics, 
because they can accomplish something thereby. It builds a level, 
direct road across the bog of partisanship where now are many devious 
and dangerous, narrow pathways. 

It will afford an outlet and opportunity not only for the better citi¬ 
zenship but also for the lowest to state its demands, to marshal its 
forces, and to show how poor and inefficient and degrading these 
demands are and how few and rabid and insane its forces are. There 
is festering now in our country, and in some places turning into gan¬ 
grene, which is poisonous and contagious, a mass of ill-digested 
thought, of rabid and insane utterance, of crooked and vicious think¬ 
ing, which should be brought up and out into the pure air and whole¬ 
some sunlight of free discussion. This bad citizenship is largely 
against the government, because it has no outlet. It repeats and 
enlarges the charges of corruption, which, it is too true, have some 
basis. Give it through direct legislation the means of getting a free 
and full discussion of its feelings and demands. The mere act of 
formulating its demands will be highly educative and education where 
most needed, and will show to it itself how false many of its inchoate, 
incoherent feelings are. These demands will be publicly discussed 
and the few grains of wheat in them can be garnered. Their discus¬ 
sion may at once remedy them, or there may be in them some of the 
highest wisdom, because showing the real though unvoiced needs of 
the submerged tenth. The great sifting machine of public opinion 
will save that wisdom which would otherwise have been lost. 

Lastly, it will replace legislation on the pedestal where men will look 
up to it and revere the legislator—not a lawmaker, but a law adviser, 
the people’s councilor—as doing the noblest work for society, the 
searching of the trail for progress, the formulating but not the utter¬ 
ing of the voice of the people—that remains with the people. If there 
is one thing which is beyond discussion in this country, which was 
established by the tears and agony of the Revolution, which was 
cemented by the blood and groans of the rebellion, it is, as Jefferson 
has said, that “all power comes from the people;” as Lincoln has 
said, that “a government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people must not perish from the face of the earth.” Direct legislation 
is simply the scientific method of getting the will of the people on 
individual measures by a logical development of the right of petition. 

9. Doc. 26-38 


80 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

No. 9.— April , 1898. 

SOME DEMOCRATIC LEADERS ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

Robert Treat Paine, jr., of Boston, Mass.: 

Our representative system has broken down. Representatives are subservient 
to the machines and bosses by whom nominations and the party machinery are 
controlled. Legislatures are distrusted and our constitutions are encumbered 
with the provisions that belong in the statutes, not in the fundamental law. 

Everywhere corruption shows its corroding influence. The hated lobby, with its 
insidious and beguiling ways, is a go-between for the corporations and the interests 
that seek surreptitiously or by their overbearing power to gain their desired privi¬ 
leges. 

Franchises of immense present or prospective value are given away, despite the 
angry protests of the voters. “ Boodle ” aldermen may be sent to Sing Sing; but 
these examples appear not to have sufficiently powerful deterrent force. Phila¬ 
delphia disposes of its gas plant, in the face of mass meetings, and the mayor of 
Cleveland has to appeal to the people against his city government. 

To-day injurious legislation irritates and arouses angry passions against the very 
institutions of the Government. The final decision should be removed ironi these 
halls where clash conflicting selfish interests, and placed where ultimate responsi¬ 
bility belongs—with the people. Then missteps made by themselves would teach 
and educate in the perhaps bitter school of experience. The approval of the 
majority witnesses ‘•the consent of the governed,” and would assure resort to 
peaceful and legal methods, and not to revolutionary agitation in order to effect 
changes. Let the people rule themselves. The outcome will be better than if 
they are coddled by even the wisest autocrat. Time only emphasizes the truth of 
the remark of Jefferson on the New England towns and their town meetings: 
They ‘ * have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man 
ior the perfect exercise of self-government.” Self-government is true democracy, 
and is the result of centuries of toil. To safeguard their rights and preserve their 
interests the whole people must vote and have the deciding voice in questions of 
important laws and policies. This will remove the benumbing influence due to 
our present feeling of helplessness before legislative highhandedness. The call to 
effective action whereby vigilance may preserve our birthright of liberty will 
stimulate and invigorate with the sense of power and responsibility. The contest 
will be changed from the quarrels of bitter partisans to the question of principles 
and measures. Special legislation will be blocked, the orders of bosses, counter¬ 
manded, and the power of the trusts will be cur bed. Elections will be pregnant 
with a deeper significance. 

With the popular election of Senators and with the policy broadly adopted of 
the municipal ownership of franchises, the legislatures will be largely freed from 
the two evil influences of partisanship and corruption and will be fitter to sift 
and perfect the legislation to be presented to the people for their ratification. 

Hon. Robert B. Smith, governor of Montana (Democrat); 

Nearly all our State constitutions provide for direct legislation to a greater or 
less degree, and, so far as I have been able to observe, it works satisfactorily. I 
do*not believe that the initiative and referendum should be applied to all classes of 
legislation. Take, for example, the laws relating to the practice in our several 
courts or the penal laws and, in fact, many other matters of detail. I do believe, 
however, that on any matter of State or national interests, where the weal or woe 
of our people is involved, great good can be accomplished by the method of the 
initiative and referendum. 

Hon. Benjamin R. Tillman, United States Senator from South Caro¬ 
lina: 

The subject of direct legislation is a very important one—too important to be 
treated lightly or hastily. I am a firm believer in the principle of democracy— 
government by the people. In State and municipal affairs it would relieve us of 
many of the evils we now suffer, because we could thus get rid of the corrupt 
influences that control State legislatures and city councils. 

William Jennings Bryan, in a recent letter: 

The principle of the initiative and referendum is democratic. It will not be 
opposed by any Democrat who indorses the declaration of Jefferson, that the people 


81 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

are capable of self-government; nor will it be opposed by any Republican who 
holds to Lincoln’s idea that this should be a government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people. 

George Fred Williams, Democratic candidate for governor of Massa¬ 
chusetts : 

The first step in the establishment of a new system of government is to prove 
the weakness of the existing system. Ours is a conservative people, ever hoping 
that the old will prove sufficient. 

The thing now to be remedied is the scheme of representative government. Its 
proven weakness is its failure even substantially to represent. Its first fallibility 
is shown in the caucus. The preliminary party meetings discourage the voter 
because the slate succeeds so often that he abandons eventually the effort to con¬ 
trol it. Second, the resulting convention is seen by the voter to be still further 
removed from his will. Preliminary representation is found to be hopelessly 
under the control of the machine. Bossism has developed so generally that in all 
parties the voter feels that his time is wasted in the party preliminaries. There 
are few exceptions to the rule that the boss holds his power through the special 
interests which are in politics to secure valuable legislative privileges or to defend 
themselves against the assertion of the public rights. 

The next stage of action is the legislative and the executive. New influences 
and new motives are now added; the lobby, the legislative caucus, the persistence 
of pressure, the power of the party organization, desire for reelection, flattery, 
and even bribery now play their individual parts. Under these multitudinous 
influences the fools are led, and if they are not supreme the knaves are brought in 
to make a majority. The House is more faithful to the people than the Senate 
because the influences are more scattered. The House comes for a caucus, the 
Senate for a convention. The nearer the representative to a plebiscite the more 
faithful he will prove to his constituency. 

Then comes the committee, formed and handled generally in behalf of special 
interests. The committee has full and special knowledge of the facts concerning 
each measure, and it is rare that an individual can overcome its recommendations. 
The committee having special interests in charge are generally appointed in their 
favor by a presiding officer who needs these interests lor his success. 

When arbitrary rule over legislation is assumed by the presiding officer, as now 
in the House of Representatives, it is by his grace that the people’s will can even 
receive consideration. The several stages of legislative progress from the caucus 
to the veto present just so many opportunities to special interests well organized 
and skillf ul to prevail over the people's interests. They succeed by two methods— 
force, thwarting legislation: and, second, securing bad legislation. Hence the 
necessity for the initiative to secure needed legislation and the referendum to 
defeat bad legislation. 

We are somewhat familiar with the referendum in popular votes upon constitu¬ 
tional amendments, municipal charters, license laws, etc. But the initiative must 
appear even more important to the realization of true democracy. It is difficult 
to see where either of these measures is assailable from the democratic standpoint. 
They represent indisputably the people’s will firmly expressed. The initiative may 
need careful consideration in detail, but the referendum seems to be a plain right 
of the people. The legislator in theory does the people's will through representa¬ 
tion. if in fact a majority of the people be against a legislative act the theory is 
falsified and the defeat of such an act by direct vote of the eonstituency corrects 
the practical failure of the representative theory. 

It must be said that the present conditions of legislative work are scandalous. 
Corporations have been created by the State to turn, like Frankensteins, upon the 
State, their creator. Railroads own legislatures, and even constitutions are over¬ 
ridden by them, as in the Pennsylvania case. So ruthlessly are the people’s rights 
shattered under the representative system that men unhesitatingly talk of revolu¬ 
tionary violence to undo these wrongs. There is an ugly spirit abroad, and we 
listen to threats of violence l rom men who twenty years ago would have rebuked 
language like their own. But force is no proper instrument in a republic till all 
others have fared. As our sense of helplessness comes from the representative 
system, why not furnish methods of reform which will give peaceable remedy? 
In the name of our dear Republic, let us have at least the referendum with which 
to undo false legislation. The initiative may be approached tentatively and devel¬ 
oped with experience, but the referendum should be placed at once in our con¬ 
stitutions. 

The Australian ballot is developing serious defects; the caucus, the convention 
have proved more potent under it, and they in turn must be regulated by the State. 

S. Doc. 340-6 


82 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


False counts, arbitrary rule by presiding officers, partisan election commissioners 
are fast destroying the faith of the people in the security of the new system. Let 
us return to true democracy and trust the people by direct vote to assert their 
rights and the right. If the people may not be trusted, then our democratic 
system is not a success. 

FOR THE PARTY MAN. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

. The old Greeks had a legend of a giant named Antseus, who per¬ 
sonified the powers of the earth, with whom Hercules had a fight. 
This giant could not be conquered while he touched the earth; he 
gained strength from the earth and was irresistible when in connection 
with it. Hercules only conquered him when Antaeus allowed himself 
to be held aloft from the earth. 

Every great political party has gained its first headway from a direct 
contact with the common people, and has been unconquerable, vigor¬ 
ous, irresistible as long as their spirit freely rose and guided its coun¬ 
cils, directed its leaders, inspired its laws and policies. The people 
have been the mother earth from which the Antaeus of party strength 
bas derived that strength and vigor. Ho matter how firmly knit and 
powerful the party organism may have been, how glorious the record of 
past deeds, how splendid and dominant the party presence may loom, 
all these can but delay the downfall of the political party which has 
severed its connection with the great common people and no longer 
serves them, but some private or special interests. 

So we find the principles of direct legislation embedded in all polit¬ 
ical parties. It is Federal and Whig, Republican and Democratic. 
But what is it? It is government by the people. Other nations may 
have decrees issued by czars or monarchs; ours is a government by 
laws. The power which makes those laws is the power that rules. 
The executive executes the law, the judiciary interprets the law, but 
the laws rule. Direct legislation means that the people make or sanc¬ 
tion every law by which they are to be governed. In small localities 
this is done in the town meeting. In larger communities, as the city, 
the State, the nation, it is accomplished by the use of petitions through 
what is known as the initiative and .referendum. By the first a rea¬ 
sonable minority of the people can sign a petition for a laAV, forcing it 
for discussion in the legislative body and the people. If the legisla¬ 
tive body does not pass it, it then goes on to the referendum, or vote 
of the people; also by the latter a reasonable minority of the people 
can, by signing a petition, force any law passed by the lawmaking 
body to a vote of the whole people. This means that every law will 
be tacitly or actually sanctioned by the people who are to be governed 
by it. It means a government by the people. 

Its principle was old when George Washington said in his wisdom- 
steeped Farewell Address: “The basis of our political system is the 
right of the people to make and alter their constitutions of govern¬ 
ment; ” and when James Madison said in the Federalist, No. XLIX: 
“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power;” and when 
John Quincy Adams, in his first message to Congress, said: “Our 
political creed is, without a dissenting voice that can be heard, that 
the will of the people is the source of the happiness of the people, the 
end of all legitimate government upon earth.” 

Many other quotations might be given from the fathers of our Con¬ 
stitution and country, but the rest will only aim to show its connection 
with the present great political parties, beginning with the oldest. 


83 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Thomas Jefferson is rightly acclaimed as the founder of tne present 
Democratic party. He was more; he was the great democratic thinker 
of his time, and his words are the heritage of all ages. He wrote to 
John Taylor (p. 605 of Yol. YI of the H. A. Washington edition of 
his writings): 

Were I to assign to this term (a republic) a precise and definite idea, I would 
say, purely and simply it means a government by its citizens in mass, acting 
directly and personally according to rules established by the majority, and that 
every other government is more or less republican in proportion as it has in its 
composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens. 
* * * The lurther the departure from direct and constant control by the citi¬ 
zens the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism. * * * 
If, then, the control of the people over these organs of government be the measure 
of its republicanism—and I confess I know no other measure—it must be agreed 
that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to be expected; 
in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents than 
their rights and their interests require. * * * And believing as I do that the 
mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially 
that the eviis flowing from the duperies of the people are less injurious than those 
from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government 
which has in it the most of this ingredient. 

In a letter to M. FAbbie Armand (p. 81, Yol. Ill), he wrote: 

We think in America that it is necessary to introduce the people into every 
department of government as far as they are capable of exercising it and that this 
is the only way to insure a long-continued and honest administration of its powers. 

In his first inaugural address (p. 3, Yol. YIII), he said: 

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of him¬ 
self. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found 
angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer the question. 

In a letter to Edmund Randolph (p. 302, Yol. IY), he wrote: 

The whole body of the nation is the sovereign legislative, judiciary, and execu¬ 
tive power for itself. It is the will of the nation which makes the law obligatory; 
it is their will which creates or annihilates the organ which is to declare and 
announce it. 

In a letter to Col. Ed. Carrington (p. 98, Yol. II), he wrote: 

I am persuaded that the good sense of the people will be found to b( their best 
army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct tnemselves. 
The people are the only censors of their governors; and even their errors will tend 
to keep to the true principles of their institutions. 

In a letter to Samuel Kercheval (p. 9, Yol. Y1I) he wrote: 

Governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of the 
people and execute it. 

And in another place he said: 

The will of the majority is the natural law of every society and the only sure 
guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err, but its 
errors are honest, solitary, and short-lived. Let us forever bow down to the gen¬ 
eral reasoD of society. 

Only three other quotations from early Democrats will be given to 
show how completely was the Democratic party founded on the prin¬ 
ciples at the base of direct legislation, but these are names luminous 
in the annals of that party and were great men. Many more might 
be given. 

Andrew Jackson, in his inaugural address, said: 

Experience proves that in proportion as agents to execute the will of the people 
are multiplied there is danger of their wishes being frustrated. Some may be 
unfaithful: all are liable to err. So far, therefore, as the people can with con¬ 
venience speak, it is safer for them to express their own will. 


84 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

John C. Calhoun said, in his oration on the rights of States: 

By nature every individual has the right to govern himself; and governments 
must derive their right from the assent expressed or implied of the governed and 
be subject to such limitations as they impose. 

Alex. H. Stephens, United States Senator from Georgia, and later 
Vice-President of the Confederacy, magnificent orator and magnifi¬ 
cent man, said, as reported in Greeley’s American Conflict, (Vol. I, 
p. 344), in a speech before the Georgia legislature opposing secession: 

Should Georgia determine to go out of the Union, I speak for one, though other 
views may not agree with mine, whatever the result may be, 1 shall bow to the 
will of the people. Their cause is my cause, their destiny is my destiny, and I 
trust this will be the ultimate course of all. 

The greatest curse that can befall a free people is civil war. But let us call a 
convention of the pepple, let all these matters be submitted to it. and when the 
will of a majority of the people has thus been expressed, the whole State will pre¬ 
sent one unanimous voice in favor of whatever may be demanded. 

How in such a great crisis he turned to the sure foundation of the 
voice of the people, and would that, instead of seeking the smaller 
voice of a State, he had hearkened to the larger, saner, surer voice of 
the nation. 

As St. Loe Strachey, editor of the London Spectator, said recently 
in that paper: 

The most democratic measure conceivable is the referendum. No one who 
upholds that institution can be accused for a moment of not trusting the people or 
of failing to acquiesce in the principle that the people themselves constitute the ulti¬ 
mate sovereign power in the nation. That is the true touchstone. The man who 
refuses to agree on the referendum may be a good Jacobin—one, that is, who holds 
certain abstract views as sacred—but he can not be true to the essential principle 
of democratic government. 

Now, if anyone says that the principles on which the Democratic 
party was founded are not those of direct legislation, tell him he 
doesn’t know what he is talking about. True, they have not always 
followed those principles, but when that happened, they have, like 
Antaeus, held aloft from the earth, been losing strength. 

Before I commence with Republican quotations I want to give one 
or two from those who were really predecessors to that party. 

Alexander Hamilton, as quoted by Chas. Sumner, said (Vol. X, 
p. 183, Sumner’s Works): 

The principles of the Revolution taught the inhabitants of this country to risk 
their lives and fortunes in asserting their liberty; in other words, their right to a 
share in the government. 

Daniel Webster, in his famous reply to Hayne, said: 

It is, sir, the people’s Constitution, the people’s Government; made for the 
people: made by the people and answerable to the people. The people of the 
United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law. We 
must either admit the proposition or dispute the authority. * * * We are all 
agents of the same supreme power, the people. * * * The people, sir, erected 
this Government. * * * Gentlemen do not seem to recollect that the people 
have the power to do anything for themselves. 

We see here where Lincoln got almost the very words in his famous 
Gettysburg oration: 

A Government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

Thomas Benton said: 

The troubles of this country arise from its uneasy politicians; its safety depends 
on the tranquil masses. 


85 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC 

Wendell Phillips, who certainly did as much as any other single 
man to create the Republican party, said in his Lesson of the Hour 
lecture, delivered in 1859: 

The idea of oar civilization underlying all American life is that we do not need 
any protector. We need no safeguard; not only the inevitable but the best power 
this side of the ocean, is the unfettered, average common sense of the masses. 

And in his lecture on Public Opinion, he said: 

Vox populi, vox Dei—the voice of the people is the voice of God. I do not mean 
this of any single verdict which the people of to-day may record. But in the 
great result the race always means right. The people always mean right, and in 
the end they will have the right. 

Charles Sumner, in his lecture on Caste, delivered in 1869, said: 

In the presence of an enlightened people, a single lawgiver, or an aristocracy of 
lawgivers, is impossible while government becomes the rule of all for the good 
of all—not the one-man power, so constant in history—not an aristocracy, which 
is the rule of a class—not any combination, howsoever accepted, sanctioning exclu¬ 
sion, but the whole body of the people, without exclusions of any kind; or, in the 
great words of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, “ Government of the people, by 
the people, and for the people.” 

James Russell Lowell, in his address on Democracy, said: 

The democratic theory is that those constitutions are likely to prove steadiest 
which have the broadest base; that the right to vote makes a safety valve of every 
voter, and that the best way of teaching a man how to vote is to give him the 
chance to practice. 

In an official address, dated November 27, 1859, the Republican 
Association of Washington said to the Republicans of the United 
States: 

Let us not forget that it is not the want of generous sentiment that prevents the 
American people from being united in action against the aggressive slave power. 
Were these simple questions submitted to the people of the United States: Are you 
in favor of the extension of slavery? Are you in favor of such extension by the aid 
or connivance of the Federal Government? and could they be permitted to record 
their response without embarrassment, without constraint of any kind, nineteen- 
twentieths of the people of the free States and perhaps more than half of the slave 
States would return a decided negative to both. 

Hundreds of other quotations could be given from early Republican 
leaders, but space will only permit quotations from one, its greatest 
man, whom Lowell calls “the first American.” Abraham Lincoln 
said in a speech at Peoria in 1854: 

According to our ancient faith the just powers of government are derived from 
the consent of the governed. * * * Allow all the governed an equal voice in 
the government and that, and that only, is self-government. 

In his first inaugural address he said: 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. * * * 
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people. * * * Why 
should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is 
there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either 
party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ru’er of nations, with 
His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, on yours of the South, 
that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great 
tribunal—the American people. 

And all remember his witty words: 

You can fool part of the people all of the time, and all of the people part of the 
time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time. 


86 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

And in another place lie said: 

No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from pov¬ 
erty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly 
earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already 
possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advance¬ 
ment against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till 
all of liberty shall be lost. 

But the most important fact which I have found out about Lincoln 
is, not only that he believed in the principles of direct legislation, but 
that he actually tried to put it into operation on a tremendous scale 
to settle the war. This is foreshadowed in the address of the Repub¬ 
lican Association already quoted from and hinted at in Lincoln’s 
message to Congress of July 4, 1861, in which he said: 

It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a majority of the legally quali¬ 
fied voters of any States, except perhaps South Carolina, in favor of disunion. 
There is much reason to believe that the Union men are in a majority in many if 
not in every one of the so-called seceded States. 

But the full story is told in the Atlantic Monthly of September, 1864, 
by Edmond Kirke, who, in company with Rev. Dr. Jaquess, colonel 
of the Seventy-third Illinois Volunteers, visited Richmond early in 
the war and had a long talk with Mr. Davis, President of the Confed- 
erac} 7 , and Mr. Benjamin, the secretary of state. Though not officially 
authorized by the Union Government to treat for peace, they had 
passes from Lincoln and he knew of the propositions they had to make, 
and if those propositions had been entertained, they would doubtless 
have been followed by authorized agents. This is a common method 
in diplomacy for beginning negotiations. 

After a talk about slavery, which ended by Mr. Davis saying 
frankly: 

No, slavery is not; it never was an essential element. It was only the means 
of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. 

Mr. Kirke said: 

Well, suppose the two Governments should agree to something like this: To go 
to the people with two propositions; say, peace with disunion and Southern inde¬ 
pendence as your proposition, and peace with union, emancipation, no confisca¬ 
tion, and universal amnesty as ours. Let the citizens of all the United States (as 
they existed before the war; vote “yes” or “no” on these two propositions at a 
special election within sixty days. If a majority votes disunion, our Government 
to be bound by.it and let you go in peace. If a majority votes union, yours to be 
bound by it and to stay in peace. The two Governments can contract in this way, 
and the people, though constitutionally unable to decide on peace or war, can 
elect which of the two propositions shall govern their rulers. Let Lee and Grant 
meanwhile agree to an armistice. This would sheath the sword, and once sheathed 
it would never again be drawn by this generation. 

Later in the talk he phrased it that “the people shall decide the 
question,” and “but the majority must rule finally, either with bul¬ 
lets or ballots,” and to this Mr. Davis replied: “Neither current 
events nor history shows that the majority rules or ever did rule. 
The contrary, I think, is true.” Mr. Davis refused to entertain these 
proposals, and the question was settled by bullets and not by ballots, 
as it might have been, without war and bloodshed, if this proposal, 
coming from a republican government, had been entertained. 

After reading this let no one say that the Republican party was not 
founded on the principles at the base of direct legislation. I repeat, 
in closing, what I said in opening: Every great political party has 
gained its first headway from a direct contact with the common 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


87 


people, and has been unconquerable, vigorous, irresistible as long as 
their spirit freely rose and guided its councils, directed its leaders, 
inspired its laws and policies. The people have been the mother 
earth from which the Antrnus of party strength has derived that 
strength and vigor. No matter how firmly knit and powerful the 
party organization may have been, how glorious the records of past 
deeds, how splendid and dominant the party presence may loom, all 
these can but delay the downfall of the political party which has sev¬ 
ered its connection with the great, common people, and no longer 
serves them, but some private or special interests. 

Direct legislation is not only Populist, and Republican, and Demo¬ 
cratic, and Whig, and Federal, too; it is more—it is American. 


Appendix No. 9. 

EXTRACTS FROM MARTIN RITTENHAUSEN’S BOOK ON DIRECT LEG¬ 
ISLATION, WRITTEN IN 1850 AND TRANSLATED AND PUBLISHED 

BY TWENTIETH CENTURA COMPANY, NEW YORK. 

[The Direct Legislation Record, September, 1897. A quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

His nine reasons are as follows: 

1. The representative system is a remnant of ancient feudalism. It 
had a reason for existence when society was composed of corporate 
bodies or classes of various kinds, charging their delegates with a 
specific command. But it no longer has this reason for existence, 
since these corporate classes have disappeared. In doing away with 
the spirit of the middle ages, the cause, the people should have done 
away with the effect. 

2. It is absurd to represent a thing by its diametrical opposite, 
black by white, the general interest of the people by a particular inter¬ 
est opposed to it. 

3. Representation in government is a fiction and nothing but a fic¬ 
tion. Representation does not exist, unless that term is applied to a 
continual antagonism of those whom one is alleged to represent. 

4. Even if there happened to be a case of genuine representation 
through some undiscoverable paragon of a representative, the major¬ 
ity of the votes of a country would still remain unrepresented. 

5. In the elections the intriguer has the advantage over the honest 
man, because he will not shrink from a number of methods that are 
disdained by an honorable candidate; the incompetent has an advan¬ 
tage over the man of ability, because three-fourths of the electors vote, 
and always must vote, without knowing and without being in a posi¬ 
tion to judge the merits of the candidate. Besides, in this mendacious 
system of government, the election is itself an absurd sham. l r ou 
either ask the voter to cast his ballot according to his own personal 
convictions, upon the strength of his acquaintance with the capacity 
or honesty or the policy of the candidate, in which case you ask the 
impossible; or you ask the voter to cast his ballot for a candidate 
nominated by a convention, and then you have no election at all; you 
merely have a nomination secured through a small coterie, itself 
dominated by motives of personal interest. Accordingly, experience 
proves that in every representative assembly five-sixths of the depu¬ 
ties are mediocrities. 

6. In a representative assembly many upright natures change their 



88 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

character entirely; the honest man is there, the readiest to repudiate 
his convictions. There are temptations to which it is only possible to 
expose men under penalty of seeing them succumb. One of these 
temptations is the power to enrich one’s self or one’s family, to rise in 
the worldly scale; that is to say, to oppress one’s fellow-creatures with¬ 
out incurring any responsibility whatever. Hence continual aposta¬ 
sies and the impossibility of ever creating a well-ordered majority. 

7. The fear of not being reelected is absolutely without influence 
upon the conduct of the unscrupulous representative. The more he 
violates the confidence reposed in him, the more certain he maybe of 
reelection. Hence the most detestable politicians have the longest 
legislative careers; they survive the fall of all regimes. 

8. Under the influence of this same tendency every representative 
assembly must necessarily be worse than the one preceding it. 

9. Representative assemblies are the incarnation of incapacity and 
evil intent, from a legislative and political standpoint. In legislation 
they make continual onslaughts upon the liberties of the people or 
surrender the slender patrimony of the poor to speculators. Polit¬ 
ically, the situation is still worse, if that be possible. 

A few of his paragraphs concerning direct legislation will close this 
brief review: 

Direct legislation asks the people only to understand their own 
interests. This is all that anyone can ask without being guilty of an 
act of folly. 

The masses are endowed with an inimitable capacity of going straight 
to the heart of a great legislative question and deciding it in accord¬ 
ance with the principles of eternal justice and natural equity with 
which their interests must necessarily accord; whereas this capacity 
and good faith can manifest themselves, but seldom among a body of 
pretended legislators, who, in addition to their class interests, are 
blinded by pride and prejudice. Who has not observed the sponta¬ 
neous intelligence with which the masses will settle questions that for 
ages have been rending the hair-splitting brains of the privileged 
classes without being determined? In a recent discussion of direct 
legislation one opponent, a widely known literary man, wanted to 
know how the people could be asked to settle the grave question of 
the separation of church and state, a question which the most learned 
disputants can give no solution of. There was a subdued murmur 
among the audience at this question, and a workman asked leave to 
speak. “The people,” he said, “will decide that those who want to 
pray may say their prayers. Religion is a private alfair.” 

There was no fault in the revolutionary movement that was not 
committed by the educated students; no apostasy, but that of a leader. 
Neither educated men nor leaders framed a proposed measure that 
could be depended upon, either on principle or as a practical measure. 

Robespierre, wishing to sacrifice Louis XYI, was quite right in 
opposing all appeal to the people, and I am convinced that had the 
Reign of Terror been organized on a democratic basis—if such an 
expression may be employed—had the sections been charged with the 
duty of passing judgment upon all the enemies of the public weal in 
their respective neighborhoods, the horrors perpetrated by the pro¬ 
consols and the savage-minded committees then ruling in Paris and 
in other cities would have been avoided. 

Democracy, remaining true to its principles, will go forward, and 
the first step in advance and in freedom from the representative world 
is direct legislation by all the people. We defy the whole world to 
prove the contrary with any appearance of logic and common sense. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


89 


Direct legislation is the only government worthy of an enlightened 
nation, the only government through which the theory of the sover- 
eignty of the people becomes an accomplished fact. 


Appendix No. 10. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1895, a quarterly, published at Newark, N. .T.] 

THE FORCES BEHIND DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

The American Federation of Labor has repeatedly used it, and until 
last December it was the only political plank which they indorsed. 

The New Jersey State Federation of Labor, on May 8,1894, resolved: 

That we request our State and local officers to give the Direct Legislation League 
of New Jersey every help in their power, and that we advise them to secure the 
nomination of candidates who will pledge themselves to direct legislation, and to 
work and vote only for those. 

The State Congress of Labor of New Jersey, on August 20, 1894, 
unanimously approved the above resolution. Two sample resolutions, 
one from each end of the State, will be given here. 

The City Trades Council of Millville, Cumberland County, in Janu¬ 
ary, 1895, said: 

Whereas we do most emphatically protest against our legislature so belittling 
our intelligence and ability as citizens by deferring action on the proposed amend¬ 
ment on the plea of waiting until some other State has shown the advantage of 
direct legislation; 

Whereas the Republican party at their last county convention did indorse direct 
legislation: Therefore, be it 

Resolved , That we request our representation not only to vote for the amend¬ 
ment, but to use every means to prevent the bill being buried in the committee’s 
hands. 

The Essex Trade Council of Newark, on February 22, 1895, said: 

Whereas we believe in direct legislation, and want the referendum amendment 
passed at this session of the legislature, so that the people can decide on it in the 
fall of 1896; and 

Whereas the judiciary committees of the house and senate have been consider¬ 
ing this amendment for over a month: Therefore, be it 

Resolved , That they have had ample time for consultation, and that we request 
the house and senate to take it out of their hands, so that there may be a vote on 
it, and we m«,y know where our representatives and the Republican party stand. 

The third statement of the declaration of principles of the Knights 
of Labor is “The establishment of the referendum in the making of 
all laws. ” 

The different local and district assemblies have heartily supported 
this. Only one sample resolution will be quoted. 

District Assembly No. 197 of the Knights of Labor, which meets in 
Jersey City, said on February 1, 1894: 

Whereas we want the referendum amendment: Therefore, be it 

Resolved, That we ask our members and senators to see that it is gotten out of 
the judiciary committee within a reasonable time, which should not exceed three 
weeks after its introduction. 

The New Jersey State Farmers’ Alliance said at its annual meeting 
in January, 1895: 

Whereas the Direct Legislation League of New Jersey is urging a constitu¬ 
tional amendment giving the people direct and constant control over their law¬ 
making bodies Therefore, be it 

Resolved , That we indorse it most heartily and commend it to our local alliances, 
and request our legislature to pass it. 



90 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Many local alliances have passed resolutions in favor of it. Only 
one sample will be quoted: 

Be it known to the senate and general assembly, that we demand the referendum 
amendment: Therefore, be it 

Resolved , That we, the Farmers’ Alliance of Hunterdon County, ask our mem¬ 
bers and senator to see that it is gotten out of the judiciary committee without 
delay. 

The General Legislative Board of Railroad Employees of New 
Jersey, representing the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, the Order of Railway Conduct¬ 
ors, the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, with 35,000 voters on the 
different railways in New Jersey, ou September 28,1894, moved unan¬ 
imously “That this body heartily indorses the direct-legislation move¬ 
ment, as they see in it a place where the vote of a poor man is equal 
to the vote of a rich man.” 

Besides these, it has been indorsed by several Christian Endeavor 
societies and Epworth leagues, the Sharp Post of the Grand Army of 
the Republic, the Good Roads Association, the Ocean County Board 
of Agriculture, and numerous other societies. It is in the national 
and State platforms of the minor political parties and in many of the 
county platforms of both the Republican and Democratic parties. 


Appendix No. 11. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1895, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

ADDRESS DELIVERED BY J. W. ARROWSMITH BEFORE THE SENATE 
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, TRENTON, N. J., FEBRUARY 12, 1895. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : It is with pleas¬ 
ure that I advocate that fundamental and vital principle of popular 
government—the referendum. I take as the text of my remarks an 
observation made by a member of this present senate: “ What is the 
use of legislators if the people are to make the laws? ” I believe this 
objection, besides being based upon a misconception of the scope and 
application of the referendum principle, is the foundation of what¬ 
ever opposition exists in the senate and house. I solicit your earnest 
consideration, first, to the referendum as proposed in the amendment; 
second, to the power of the people; third, to the rights of legislators. 

The amendment as proposed does not comprehend the submission 
of all laws to a vote of the people at the polls, but only such law or 
laws as shall be petitioned for by, we will say, 5 per cent of the voting 
citizenship. In fact, the amendment specifically declares that at least 
two classes of measures shall not be subject to the popular referendum: 
Acts relating, first, to the public health; second, to the public peace. 
An invasion of cholera must be arrested and mob riot quelled, both 
summarily, and in order that no delay maj T occur a two-thirds vote of 
both houses of the legislature may enact summary measures, which 
measures thus passed can not be challenged by popular petition or 
sent to a referendary vote of the people. 

Chairman Voorhees. Why do you put 5 per cent as the requisite 
number of signatures to send a measure to the referendum? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Five per cent was merely suggested as about 
equitable—as small as would probably be concurred in and as large 
as would be found workable. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 91 

Chairman V OORHEES. You propose, then, that 5 per cent of the 
voters shall overrule the work of the majority? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Not at all! The intention is to conserve the 
will of the majority. Five per cent may only institute a referendary 
vote, and even this must be done in the very short period of perhaps 
ninety days. The majority must still pass upon the bill at the polls 
for its acceptance or rejection, as the case may be. 

Chairman Voorhees. But is it not still true that there will be a 
continual foment and agitation by a small percentage of the voters, 
and that a majority who have elected their representatives will have 
their wishes subverted because of a referendary vote upon measures of 
importance ? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. I might answer as to “the agitation of opposi¬ 
tion by a small per cent of the voters ” that the referendum once in 
operation would prevent the introduction and passage of measures 
liable to arouse such opposition. Again, as to majorities. A majority 
of the members of the legislature voting upon a measure may not neces¬ 
sarily indicate that a majority of the people are favorable to the pas¬ 
sage of that measure. Indeed, there may not have been a majority 
of the voters of the State behind the election of this self-same legisla¬ 
tive majority. Or, what is more likely, the discussion of the measure 
may not even have entered into the canvass when the legislature was 
elected. 

Chairman Voorhees. Would you be willing to have the per cent 
of petitioners raised to a majority of the voters? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Why, sir, if that were demanded there would be 
no use for a referendary vote, and certainly it would not do to give 
petition a legislative force. 

Chairman Voorhees. That is just what I am driving at. Why not 
accept the work of a representative legislature as final and do without 
the referendum? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. I am glad you have asked that question. The 
main reason why we can not accept the work of a representative leg¬ 
islature as final is because it is not representative. The legislator is 
representative only in theory, as it is obvious to anyone that no one 
man can represent any other person upon each and every measure 
demanding his consideration and disposal. How much more difficult, 
then, to represent a whole community or State upon each and every 
proposition affecting the public weal. 

Chairman Voorhees. I dispute the statement that representation 
is impossible. 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Will the chairman answer this question? I do 
not ask it from personal motives. Would he be willing to make affi¬ 
davit that he has represented the majority of his constituency in 
Union County upon each and every measure coming before him? 

Chairman Voorhees. I certainly would. 

Mr. Arrowsmth. I really don’t see how the gentleman could know 
the will of his constituency except upon a referendary vote. However, 
assuming that he is correct, yet measures for which he has voted have 
often been defeated by his colleagues, thus effecting a misrepresenta¬ 
tion of Union County which he himself could not prevent. 

We have drifted far from our moorings when we begin to question 
the power of the people to accept or to reject laws made by their agents, 
and which laws do bind the citizens, their children, and perhaps 
their children’s children. That famous bill of rights—the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence—says that “governments derive their just pow- 


92 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


ers from the consent of the governed.” That is to say, that in a free 
country law is government (not men), and law which governs ought 
to be consented to by those governed by it. Our own State organic 
law reads thus (Art,. I, Sec. II): “All political power is inherent in 
the people. Governments are instituted for the protection, security, 
and benefit of the people, and they have the right at all times to alter 
and reform the same whenever the public good may require it.” The 
power of the people can not be gainsaid. It is sovereign. 

The rights of legislators begin and end with the people. Their 
powers are only delegated. The legislator at the best is only an expe¬ 
dient—a necessary expedient. The people being too many to bother 
about the enactment of statutory laws, which must ever be more or less 
numerous, hit upon the device of adopting an expedient—a legislator 
who should be as representative as possible, and yet always an agent 
and servant of the people. The constitution restricts him in many 
ways. We therefore desire to incorporate the referendum also into 
the constitution of the State, that representation may be made more 
representative. 

Chairman Voorhees. Now we are back to the starting point, and 
there seems to be an obvious contradiction. At first you held that 
representation did not represent, yet now you advocate the referen¬ 
dum in order that we may have better representation. 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Representation does not always represent; in 
fact, it seldom does. Therefore, we need the referendum to prove 
and to overcome misrepresentation. If I were a senator, and I may 
never hope for such a distinction, and should stand in the minority on 
this floor, and against my best judgment a measure should become a 
law, and should, upon the application of the referendum, be rejected 
by the people, I would feel myself happily justified. 

Chairman Voorhees. I would resign under such censure, and 
should consider the rejection of the bill as equivalent to an expression 
of a want of confidence. 

Senator Daly. So would I. 

Senator Stokes. No self-respecting man could do otherwise. 

Mr. Arrowsmith. I would not! I would consider that, no man 
being infallible, the people knew it, and merely overruled the judg¬ 
ment, not of a ruler, but of an agent. If I were a legislator I would 
rather stand in the minority with a majority of the people of New 
Jersey than anywhere else under heaven. The fact is that, with the 
referendum in operation, the legislator would be so-“self-respecting” 
as to refuse to pass laws that would possibly arouse the people to an 
action which might be construed as “a want of confidence.” 

Senator Stokes. But Mr. J. W. Sullivan, the author of Direct Leg¬ 
islation by the Citizenship, holds that representatives are superfluous. 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Does he so state it? 

Senator Stokes. In a paper in The Direct Legislation Record he 
substantially takes that position. 

Mr. Arrowsmith. That may be a theory of his personally, but we 
are practical in advocating a constitutional amendment which does 
not propose any change in our representative system. 

Senator Stokes. But, now, take for instance the question of an 
open Sunday in any of the larger cities of the State. Would not the 
people adopt it if left to them ? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. I think they might if left to them locally, but I 
presume such a question ought to be a State question. However, the 
proposed amendment does not comprehend the initiative, and a legis- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 93 

lative body would first have to pass such a law before the wicked 
people could possibly adopt it. 

Senator Stokes. Oh, I see! The initiative is not comprehended in 
this amendment. 

Chairman Y oorhees. Has it occurred to you that only a very small 
per cent of the citizens vote upon a question, or eveh a constitutional 
amendment? 

Mr. Arrowsmith. That can be easily explained. A few years ago 
the legislature of this State submitted to the citizens of Orange the 
acceptance or rejection of a measure providing for the election of a 
new officer—president of the council—at a salary of $1,000 per annum. 
Now, out of a citizenship of upwards of 5,000, almost altogether op¬ 
posed to it, only a small percentage of the voters expressed themselves 
upon the question. I did not vote upon it, and my neighbors exhib¬ 
ited a similar indifference. Why? Simply because we Orange folks 
knew that our wishes would be set at naught and the politicians 
would come to Trenton and carry their point with or without our con¬ 
sent. Let the people once feel that they are sovereign and they will 
vote and look to their own interests. 

Chairman Yoorhees. But you propose an overthrow of the pres¬ 
ent republican form of government, which has proven so stable, and 
the adoption of a democratic form of government similar to the ancient 
Grecian democracy. 

Mr. Arrowsmith. Not at all. Not in any sense do we propose to 
disturb the existing form of government. With all due respect to the 
committee, I call their attention to Webster’s definition of a democracy 
and a republic: 

Democracy—Government by the people. Such was the government of Athens. 

Republic—A commonwealth. The democracies of Greece are often called re¬ 
publics. 

Thus democracy and republicanism, as applied to government, are 
synonymous. That country (Switzerland) where the referendum is in 
full operation is known the world over as “The model republic,” not 
“The model democracy.” In forming our constitutions, State and 
national, our forefathers knew but little or no distinction except be¬ 
tween governments monarchical and free. 

I conclude with the exhortation that the committee report favorably 
upon this amendment. 


Appendix No. 12. 

[From Direct Legislation Record, December, 1896, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

A COLOSSAL BUT CRUDE AND AWKWARD REFERENDUM. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy. J 

The 3d of November last saw the end of one of our quadrennial 
referendums. At the beginning of our national life these were true 
elections—choosing of rulers. But each succeeding one has marked 
an advance of the referendum idea—the determining of principles by 
the people. Washington was chosen President because of his char¬ 
acter, and not because of the party behind him and the principles he 
or they advocated. Both of the candidates for that office recently 
voted on are of unblemished character. McKinley was not elected, 
nor was Bryan defeated, because of their personal characters, because 
the one was a fit and the other was an unfit man to rule. The one 



94 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


was chosen and the other defeated because of the platforms on which 
each stood and the principles they advocated. As Bryan said in his 
telegram to McKinley: “We have submitted the issue to the Amer¬ 
ican people and their will is law.” 

A LITTLE-NOTED CAUSE. 

Rarely in previous campaigns have the platforms and discussion 
developed such clear, definite, and squarely opposed issues. A little- 
noted cause of this is the progress of civil-service reform, which has 
taken the spoils element, to a large extent, out of national politics. 
The President does not have a tithe of the power of appointment that 
he had a score of years ago, and most of the offices he does appoint to 
are more important and more in public view, so that his selection is 
limited to a comparatively small class in the community. This has 
nearly dried up one of the great springs of political activity—the hope 
of an office—and its place has had to bp supplied by a higher incentive 
to political activity—the advocacy of a principle. This change will 
become more and more marked and important in the future. 

THE PEOPLE WILLED THE ISSUE. 

Early in the year the Republican managers, relying on the disor¬ 
ganization produced in the Democratic party by a depression of busi¬ 
ness during a Democratic Administration, used every effort to make 
the tariff the issue. The old-time Democratic leaders were afraid of 
the silver issue, and they would gladly have shelved or straddled it. 
But neither were successful. The free coinage of silver was the issue. 
The people would have it. The managers on both sides could not 
prevent it. It is a most abstruse, technical, and seemingly not a 
popular issue. 

A CAMPAIGN OF EDUCATION. 

The Baltimore News recently said editorially: 

The last few months have proved a campaign of education. Not only have the 
people of the country informed themselves thoroughly, but they have also accus¬ 
tomed themselves to an interest in political matters on a scale almost unknown in 
this generation. In that this campaign has given the people a clearer view of their 
responsibilities and their powers, and has stirred up in them a deep and, we trust, 
a persistent interest in political questions, it has produced an effect for good that 
is simply incalculable. 

The Newark (N. J.) Evening News said: 

The voters were suddenly called upon to decide by popular vote an economic 
policy of government the consideration of which the lawmaking body had suc¬ 
ceeded in staving off because of its perplexities and its danger. The issue forced 
an educational campaign of unprecedented character. Not in the history of poli¬ 
tics in this country has such a battle been fought. 

Mr. W. B. Shaw, in the Review of Reviews, said: 

It has been the fashion in previous Presidential contests in this country to sneer 
at the phrase “ campaign of education,’’although it was said that in England,and 
some other countries where popular suffrage prevailed, the words had a meaning 
which they never possessed here. However that may be, it is certain that from 
this time on the American people will fully understand what is meant by a cam¬ 
paign of education, for such a campaign we have had beyond question. 

Speaking of local matters in their own States, and these States the 
ones most in dispute, where the conflict was the hottest, various col¬ 
lege professors have given the following testimony: 


95 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Prof. W. W. Folwell, of the University of Minnesota, says: 

Every school district has been canvassed and every house supplied with the wit¬ 
tily, albeit grotesquely, illustrated literature of the opposing hosts. 

Prof. Henry C. Adams, of the University of Michigan, says: 

The character of the campaign is peculiar. Never before in my recollection has 
such extensive use been made of the small guns. There have been comparatively 
few speeches from noted men, but meetings are held in hundreds of schoolhouses 
nightly. Posters are used, and they aim to be arguments rather than caricatures. 
The campaign is earnest, and, for the most part, courteous. It is a campaign of 
discussion and education. 

Dr. James A. Woodburn, of the State University of Indiana, says: 

As usual, the old party spirit has been worked up, and party discipline has been 
applied; but. to serious people, all these elements have seemed more than ever out 
of place during this popular referendum on a great public question, and it may 
still be said that there has not teen for years, certainly not since the war, such 
serious and earnest consideration of public questions on the part of the masses of 
the voters. More unselfish service than ever before has been devoted to politics. 
Two things may be emphasized in the outcome: (1) A remarkable extension of 
popular knowledge on the money question; (2) old party ties have been greatly 
loosened. 

Professor Macy, of Iowa College, says: 

The campaign in Iowa is characterized by earnest and sincere discussion of one 
issue, viz: The free coinage of silver. There are no processions, few brass bands, 
and little noise. Men and women sit for hours listening to a presentation of facts 
and statistics Political meetings are numerous and large, yet they constitute the 
smallest part of the discussion. Wherever men meet, in shop or by the way, they 
engage in financial discussion. 

Professor Taylor, of the State University of Nebraska, says: 

Harangue and appeal to selfish motive are not the order of the day, and what¬ 
ever may be the party result of the election, a more valuable result for the future 
of the State of Nebraska is already gained in the rising level of intelligent discus¬ 
sion. 

SUMMARY. 

The Review of Reviews well sums it up when it says: 

The spectacle of millions upon millions of citizens of a great nation debating 
the intricacies of the currency question certainly has its curious aspects. Noth¬ 
ing like it was ever seen in any other great country before. Whatever questions 
may at one time or another disturb the minds of the mass of men who hold the 
franchise in England, France, Germany, or other European countries, the plain 
people have never for a moment believed it possible that they were competent to 
settle currency and banking questions on a plan of a popular referendum. These 
are matters involving scientific and expert knowledge. The intense discussion of 
1896 in this country will not have resulted in making accomplished monetary sci¬ 
entists out of a majority of the population; nevertheless, the serious and honest 
effort of the voters to find out enough about these questions to act with reasonable 
intelligence and prudence can only produce valuable results in the end. It is a 
part of our education as a democracy. 

ON A COLOSSAL SCALE. 

The quotations given prove the colossal scale of the education 
forced by this referendum. It penetrated the humblest hamlet, stirred 
the dullest intellect. Only a few facts can be given. The Republican 
national committee issued over 200,000,000 documents, which is said 
to be half as many again as all ever issued by it since it began. These 
were printed in over ten languages and sent out in 5,000 freight, 
20,000 express, and 500,000 mail packages. Plate matter was supplied 
to thousands of country papers. Posters and other matter was widely 
S. I>oc. 26-39 


96 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


distributed. The Republican Congressional committee sent out 
2,500,000 copies of one speech, and that was but one of the many it 
sent out. The Democratic and Populist committees sent out tons of 
matter. Speakers circulated everywhere. Bryan’s tour through 
twenty-three States, making 400 speeches, is only the magnificent cli¬ 
max of a tremendous amount of speechmaking, and on a subject 
which it would seem almost impossible to make interesting and pop¬ 
ular. 

THE COST OF IT. 

The Oneonta Critic says: 

To say nothing of the millions of dollars spent in campaigning, the cost of Pres¬ 
idential elections is enormous. Election expenses are not the same in any two 
States, nor in any two cities in the same State. This is due, first, to difference in 
population; and,* second, to the cost of rent and service, which is greater the 
larger the population. For instance, the election in New York State will cost 
about $1 per vote, in New Jersey 75 cents, in New York City $1.34 per vote cast, 
in Brooklyn $1.19, in Buffalo $1.21, and in Albany 89 cents; while in the majority 
of cities and towns it will cost less than 75 cents per vote. In Illinois the election 
will cost about 40 cents per vote, and in Chicago a little more than 50 cents. To 
obtain an exact average cost per vote throughout the country would require much 
difficult inquiry and calculation, but it will not be far from 45 cents, more or less. 

In round numbers there will be 13,000,000 votes cast at this election. At a cost 
of 45 cents each, the people will pay $5,850,000 for the privilege of voting, which 
sum is a very conservative estimate. 

The exact amount spent by the various campaign committees can 
never be known, but it runs into the millions, and when one considers 
the multitudinous local, county, State, Congressional, national, etc., 
committees of all the different parties and the divers leagues, clubs, 
and other organizations, the expenditures must be at least four or five 
times what the mere casting and counting of the vote actually costs 
the Government. It is probable the cost of this colossal national ref¬ 
erendum is not short of twenty-five millions. 

CRUDE AND AWKWARD. 

Yet it has been a very crude, awkward, and imperfect referendum. 
It is worth all it cost, but by proper arrangement this expenditure 
might be a hundred-fold more educational. Already the most diverse 
and opposing letters are being drawn from it. The American Feder- 
ationist most clearly expresses this: 

At no time in the history of our country has a clearer object lesson been pre¬ 
sented in favor of direct legislation by the initiative and referendum than during 
the present political campaign. There are innumerable advocates of the free 
coinage of silver, and, at the same time, protectionists, while there are also 
innumerable advocates of the free coinage of silver and free trade. The same 
holds true of the advocates of the gold standard. There is no opportunity for 
the citizens to declare for either the one or the other principle direct without 
coming in conflict with their own convictions, their own conscience. For instance, 
there can be no question that if the income-tax proposition were referred to the 
people that it would be adopted by an overwhelming vote. The same may be 
true of other propositions, yet since our people are required to vote for candidates 
representing a platform of principles, they are supposed to indorse or reject all 
the principles of the platform for which one or the other candidate stands. It is 
an incongruous tangle, and one which should lead to the adoption of direct legis¬ 
lation at an early day, thus giving the people an opportunity to vote direct upon 
each proposition separately. We shall then have a true consensus of the judgment 
of the people, insuring the greatest good to the greatest number. 

Our present system is like the old undershot water wheel, which 
utilizes 5 per cent of the power. Direct legislation would be the 
improved turbine, utilizing 95 per cent. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


97 


AN UNHEALTHY EXCITEMENT. 

The excitement has been so intense that business has suffered. N. 
O. Nelson, a prominent St. Louis business man, says: “Business in 
the West has been reduceu to about one-half its usual volume.” The 
same is true, in a greater or less degree, all over the country. This 
interest is unhealthy, and it is because we crowd what should be 
extended over four years into four months. Between campaigns there 
is a period of reaction, lassitude, and indifference. This is an 
unwholesome stimulation. The Vineland (N. J.) Independent tersely 
gives the reason: 

The American people, under our Constitution, are disfranchised for four years. 
Nearly 70,000,000 people are at the tender mercy of one man. 

If the people could at any time veto any law that they did not want 
or secure the passage of a law they did want, this political interest, 
instead of being crowded into a few months, would be with us all 
the time in a wholesome and vivifying degree. It is the difference 
between a short deluge, followed by a long drouth and repeated 
refreshing showers. 

Reformers deplore these long periods of lassitude and indifference. 
Under present conditions they are wise and necessary. Between 
times interest can not fructify into effective action till the lonely day 
of our enfranchisement comes around. It is forced to live on itself, 
and soon becomes sour or dies out, and then the capability of becom¬ 
ing interested is atrophied. Discontent, which can not find a remedy, 
becomes pessemistic or violent. Either is bad, and both are the results, 
not of our quadrennial referendum, but of the crude and awkward 
manner in which they are done. 

THE RESULTS. 

Bryan’s prompt acquiescence has already been given. Chairman 
Hanna said: 

The result demonstrates that the American people are now, and they always 
have been, able to discriminate between right and wrong. 

Senator Palmer, candidate of the Gold Democrats, said: 

I adhere to my maxim that the American people can always be trusted, and 
that the rights of the people are safe with the people. 

A few characteristic opinions from each side will be given. These 
are only a few from many. 

REPUBLICAN OPINIONS. 

The Boston Journal says: 

The American people can be trusted. That is the first and most eloquent lesson 
of the great Republican victory. Whatever else this triumph may be, it is most 
conspicuously of all a confirmation of Abraham Lincoln’s strong belief in the 
good sense of his plain, average fellow-countrymen. 

The New York Mail and Express says: 

To all the governments of the earth the word goes forth that the American peo¬ 
ple are true to themselves, faithful to the traditions of their fathers, and fit to 
stand with those who lead the majestic cause of civilization, morality, and progress. 

The Newark (N. J.) Daily Advertiser says: 

The Republic is safe. The people have justified the faith that has been reposed 
in them. They have responded to the test of their fitness to determine the most 
intricate questions of government and their ability to protect their institutions 

S. Doc. 340-7 



98 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


against the most audacious, as well as most insidious assaults with a degree of 
unanimity that can not fail to make the lesson instructive for all time. Whatever 
may have been the history of other Republics, this Union of States, one and ind- 
visible, need fear no foe from within. 

Franklin Murphy, chairman of the Republican State committee of 
New Jersey, said: 

I regard the victory, of which I have had at no time the slightest doubt, as due 
to the honesty and patriotism of the American people. 

The Rochester (N. Y.) Post-Express said: 

The election of McKinley attests the capacity of us Americans for self- 
government. It admonishes us and teaches the powers beyond the sea that this 
Republic is never to be despaired of. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer said: 

Now let us have peace; the people have spoken. 

The Philadelphia North American said: 

The great heart of the nation has proven sound and true. 

The Cleveland (Ohio) Leader said: 

Popular government stands before the world stronger, higher, safer than ever 
before. 


The Cincinnati (Ohio) Commercial-Tribune said: 

We are all American citizens, alike bowing, whatever our personal beliefs, to 
that supreme law of the popular will. 

The Topeka (Ivans.) Capitol said: 

A greater demonstration of the people’s capacity for self-government has never 
been made. 

GOLD DEMOCRATIC. 


The New York World, on July 11 and again after the election, said: 

The World believes—it must believe—in the abiding good sense and the active 
conscience of the American people. 

The San Antonio (Tex.) Daily Express said: 

The interests of the whole people are safe in the hands of the majority. 

The Washington (D. C.) Post said: 

The vote which elected Mr. McKinley was the “silent vote.” It was the vote of 
the thinkers, the quiet, patient workers, the yeomanry, the bone and sinew of the 
land—the vote of sturdy men who wanted nothing of parties or politicians, who 
answered the promptings of their own consciences without external aid, who 
thought of their country first and of themselves afterwards. 

Postmaster-General William L. Wilson said: 

We have just had a test of the capacity of universal suffrage to deal with a 
question so confessedly difficult that in other countries it is committed to the 
trained experts, and especially statesmen. That test has been made under condi¬ 
tions least favorable to a safe and correct judgment. That such a fight could 
move forward through all the stages of a Presidential campaign without a panic 
and without a cessation of ordinary business enterprise has been a marvel to other 
nations. That the result has been a triumph for national integrity is a cause for 
thanksgiving; that the result has been achieved by a partial and temporary disso¬ 
lution of party ties and the hearty concert of forces, irreconcilably antagonistic on 
other policies, is a ground for quickening patriotism and loftier pride in American 
citizenship. 

SILVER REPUBLICAN. 

The Denver (Colo.) Republican said: 

If McKinley fails to solve the coinage problem in the near future, nothing can 
prevent the success of that movement in 1900, and so we feel justified in claiming 
with the utmost confidence that the battle i$ already virtually won. 


99 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

The Denver (Colo.) Times said: 

Let the bimetallist take hope and he of good cheer, because never before have 
the people been so thoroughly aroused in any cause, except the cause of slavery, 
as they have been in the campaign just closed. 

The Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune said: 

The verdict of history will be that in the campaign of 1896 the intelligence of 
the American people was not sufficient to meet and roll back the corrupt power 
and influence of money and that the people were beguiled into a course which 
gave to the money power the absolute control of this country, and that this was 
in a great measure due to a bought or mortgaged press. 

DEMOCRATIC. 

William P. St. John, treasurer of the National Democratic Com¬ 
mittee, said: 

The people have declared themselves unmistakably. I therefore cordially acqui¬ 
esce. The next four years ought amply to test the single gold standard in the 
United States. I am confident that the party in power will be quick to abandon 
it upon sufficient proof that it is a failure. The agitation must have been suffi¬ 
cient to promise this. I shall try to expect, and certainly will welcome, the res¬ 
toration of the prosperity which our late opponents promised us with their 
victory. In my opinion the silverites in the Senate ought no longer to stand in 
the way of legislation by the majority. 

The New York Journal said: 

The people have chosen Major McKinley instead of Mr. Bryan to be President. 
Nobody has a right to object, for the people’s will is sovereign. It is the high 
privilege of the citizens of this Republic to decide for themselves what is good 
for them, and when they happen to be wrong they always have the good sense to 
suffer the consequences with patience, knowing that at the ballot box they can set 
things straight again. The Journal regrets the decision of the people. Four 
years, however, constitute an insignificant space in the life of a nation. Let us 
hope that the confidence and prosperity will be forthcoming. The Journal has 
no inclination to quarrel with the jury of the people because of their verdict. If 
they had condemned the Democratic proposal to remonetize silver, it is because 
they have not been sure of its expediency and have been made doubtful of its 
morality. Further time is needed to convince them that it is both expedient and 
right. 

The Philadelphia Item said: 

For four years at least the financial standard of this country is fixed. Give 
the people a chance; remember that it will be four years before a financial change 
can be made. Let us, in the meanwhile, adapt ourselves to the situation and try 
to improve it. 

The Chicago Evening Dispatch said: 

Wait. It is only four years. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they 
grind exceedingly small; wait. To dispute the will of the majority is revolution, 
and the Dispatch believes in the perpetuity of the nation, and concedes that what 
a majority of the people want all of the people can stand. Our faith is pinned 
to American citizenship. The voice of the people is the voice of God. If it is in 
error sometimes it means well at all times. We believe that it wiil yet awaken to 
the true interest of the nation, and that in a few years right will prevail. 

The Wilkesbarre (Pa.) Leader said: 

The will of the people is supreme. Let all cheerfully bow to it and hope that 
the best that could have been done has been accomplished. 

The Indianapolis (Ind.) Sentinel said: 

The result will come as a great disappointment to thousands, but the funda¬ 
mental principle of our Government is acquiescence in the will of the majority, 
and, therefore, all good citizens will reconcile themselves to making the best of 
what they may possibly consider a bad matter. 

I o' 


100 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


The Kansas City (Mo.) Times said: 

After this quiet triumph of the mind over the passions, we can look forward with 
confidence to the future of our common country. 

The Salt Lake (Utah) Herald said: 

The American people, as a people, can not be purchased, though they may bo 
deceived. Those who advocate free silver will accept the verdict of the Ameri¬ 
can people as that of the sovereign power of this country. 

The Wheeling (W. Va.) Register said: 

But we have faith in the American people, in their common sense, and in their 
rugged honesty. Four years is not long, and Mr. Bryan is young. 

The Houston (Tex.) Post said: 

The voice of the nation has decided against the Democracy and in favor of 
Republicanism, and nothing remains, of course, but to bow as gracefully as pos¬ 
sible to the will of the majority. 


INDEPENDENT. 

The Springfield (Mass.) Republican said: 

The people are to be trusted. Over and over again they prove it, and over and 
over the politicians and the wise men forget the lesson. The great and subtle 
questions submitted are felt in all their gravity, the people do their quiet thinking 
about them, the orators grow hot, the editors abuse each other, the politicians are 
on the verge of madness, the crisis approaches, it is here, it has gone, and the 
people have decided it the best way. 

FOREIGN. 

The Toronto (Canada) Globe said: 

The American Republic has passed through a serious crisis and has come out 
triumphant. 

The Montreal (Canada) Gazette said: 

The power of a democracy to govern itself wisely was vindicated in a remark¬ 
able way in the late election in the United States. 

POPULIST AND LABOR. 

The Chicago Sentinel said: 

The lessons to be drawn are numerous, but all point to the one fact that a more 
thorough education on vital principles, with active work by tlie’rank and file, 
relegating professional tricksters and place hunters to the rear, is the only hope 
of the party, and a party that stands true to principle is the only hope of the 
country. 

The Kalamazoo (Mich.) Mirror said: 

The election which took place last Tuesday resulted in the decision of the 
American people to continue the present gold standard. Parties are defeated, but 
principles of right are bound to ba adopted in the end. The rule of the majority, 
with due regard for the rights of the minority, is vitally important to the work¬ 
ingman. How best the will of the majority can be obtained is a question which 
must be decided at an early date. Under our present system of government 
there is no way of securing an accurate register of the views of the people upon 
the questions which come up for action. Party prejudices of the voter and the 
grouping of issues in party platforms frequently result in the failure or inability 
of the voter to register his real views. This is but one method of carrying out 
the real wishes of the people, and that is direct legislation. 

The Critic, of Oneonta, N. Y., said: 

The election is over, and, as the result has been the expression of a majority of 
the voters of the country, the people are bound to abide by the result. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


101 


The Journal of Labor (Nashville, Tenn.) said: 

This fight is not ended. It has only begun. The cause of liberty and freedom 
can never die. Although discouraged by temporary defeat, we must take up the 
fight and keep it up until victory is ours. If the majority of the people can stand 
four more years of the gold standard and McKinleyism, why, we can put up with 
it. We’ll resign ourselves to the inevitable. 

The Longshoreman, of Detroit, said: 

It was a great surprise to all—even the gold men—for every reliable indication 
pointed to a silver victory. When a majority of the people have decided in favor 
of a policy, that must be carried out. 

The Knights of Labor Journal (Washington, D. C.) said: 

For twenty-seven years we have sought to bring these matters squarely before 
the voters, and in this campaign for the first time we achieved our desire. The 
slight setback will not be cause for lasting regret; the battle is still on and will be 
fought out with constitutional weapons until equity is established under a Gov 
ernment of, for, and by the people, rather than what is now in reality a Govern¬ 
ment of, for, and by a moneyed oligarchy. 

SUMMARY. 

Before the election there were some ominous sayings on the Repub¬ 
lican side, such as that of Mr. Lauterbach, chairman of the New York 
City Republican committee: “We may not abide by the , decision if 
Bryan is elected.” But after the election the Republican and Gold 
Democratic papers were loud in their appreciation of the wisdom of 
the people. Among the defeated, where naturally objections would 
arise, I have not seen a single voice suggesting opposition or even 
obstruction. They all recognize it as a decision on a principle, and, 
for the time being, as a final decision. They deplore it, feel that its 
effects will be bad, urge more education, so that the decision may be 
reversed four years hence; but they accept it. 

So, whichever side you are on, you must recognize one good result 
from this colossal referendum, crude, awkward, and imperfect as it 
is, and that is a deepening and strengthening of the sentiment that 
the will of the people is the final decision on the great principles, even 
the most abstruse and technical, which shall govern us. Should the 
signs of the times point to such a weakening of this sentiment that in 
time it might be overthrown, then the Republic might be despaired 
of. But the reverse is true. Such a weakening would be far worse 
than a wrong decision. 


Appendix No. 13. 


[From the Home Magazine, October, 1897, a monthly published in Binghamton, N. Y.] 
THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 

[By Hon. Marion Butler, United States Senator from North Carolina.] 

I take it that no one who believes in the capacity of the people for 
self-government, and that governments derive their just powers from 
the consent of the governed, will or could object to the principle ot 
the initiative and referendum. The only question for controversy is 
how far the initiative and referendum can be practically applied in a 
Government like ours. It is on this phase of the question that the 
Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate at 
the recent session was instructed to examine and report. 



102 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

The system is now in complete operation in the Swiss Republic. Sir 
Francis Adams, who was for a number of years Great Britain’s minis¬ 
ter to Switzerland, was so much impressed with the beneficial results 
to the people of that Republic that he has not only written a book 
detailing its operation, but has suggested the application of the prin¬ 
ciple in the government of Great Britain. In his work, The Swiss 
Confederation, on page 77, he says: 

The referendum and initiative aie the children of democracy, whose powerful 
weapons they have become. 

The referendum means the reference, to all vote-possessing citizens either of the 
Confederation or of a Canton, for acceptance or rejection, of laws and resolutions 
framed by their representatives. The referendum has struck root and expanded 
wherever it has been introduced, and no serious politician of any party would now 
think of attempting its abolition. The Conservatives, who violently opposed its 
introduction, became its earnest supporters when they found that it undoubtedly 
acted as a drag net upon hasty and radical lawmaking. As to the moral effect 
which the exercise of this institution has had upon the people, we are assured that 
it is admitted to be salutary, even by adversaries of democratic government. 

The initiative is the exercise of the rights granted to any single voter or body of 
voters to initiate proposals for the enactment of new laws or for the alteration or 
abolition of existing laws. It is essentially a powerful engine in a democratic 
direction. 

Sir Francis Adams then proceeds to show how the imperfections of 
the purely representative sj^stem of government, at one time in oper¬ 
ation in Switzerland, had been corrected by the application of the 
democratic principle of the initiative and referendum to their repre¬ 
sentative system. 

There is much food for thought in these suggestions for every sin¬ 
cere friend and supporter of a republican form of government. A pure 
democracy is impracticable except within a small given area. For 
instance, the New England town meetings, where all the voters gather 
to enact all the laws and regulations for their townships, is a pure 
democracy and an ideal government, as far as it is practical. But 
when it comes to legislating for the State or nation, it being impossi¬ 
ble for all the voters to gather and take part in legislating, the votes 
of all the citizens are delegated to a certain number of citizens as the 
representatives of the whole. This is what we call a representative 
form of government. If such representatives possessed as much wis¬ 
dom as the collective wisdom of the masses and were always incor¬ 
ruptible and faithful in the discharge of their trust, then a represent¬ 
ative form of government would be an ideal government for large 
communities, states, and nations. But, unfortunately, the tendency 
of a representative government is to gravitate farther and farther 
from the people. Continuously the corporations and the wealthy few 
haunt legislative halls with all kinds of influences and pressure and 
too often induce the people’s representatives to vote for laws which 
would never be enacted by the people themselves. This occurs at 
nearly if not every session of the various State legislatures and is con¬ 
stantly occurring during the sessions of Congress. It seems too clear 
for controversy that the best if not the one and only effective remedy 
is to give the people themselves the power to pass upon laws which are 
so bad and vicious as to arouse great public indignation. In short, it 
seems that it is necessary to restore to the people through the initiative 
and referendum the power to force their representatives to hear and 
act on their petitions and the power to pass upon certain acts of their 
representatives in order that a true representative form of government 
may be restored and preserved. 

The initiative and referendum are by no means new in this country. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


103 


Our Federal Constitution provides that when three-fourths of the States 
petition Congress for a constitutional convention to amend the Con¬ 
stitution that Congress must then call a constitutional convention. 
This is the initiative in a modified form. The Federal Constitution 
also provides that whenever Congress desires to amend the Constitu¬ 
tion, that after having passed such amendment by a three-fourths 
vote it shall be submitted to the various State legislatures and be rati¬ 
fied by three-fourths of them before becoming operative. This is the 
referendum. Now the proposition is to appty this same principle to 
legislative acts as well as to constitutional amendments, though it 
would be preferable to place the initiative in the case of legislation 
with a certain per cent of the people, and to refer certain legislative 
acts to a popular vote, instead of to the legislatures. 

There are two kinds of referendum, known as the compulsory and the 
optional. The compulsory referendum would require the submitting 
of all legislative acts to a popular vote. This would hardly be prac¬ 
tical, except in small republics or in legislative districts of small dimen¬ 
sions. The optional referendum would require only such laws to be 
submitted to popular vote as were demanded by petition from a cer¬ 
tain per cent of the people. The experience of Switzerland has been 
that the people had the power to demand legislative acts to be sub¬ 
mitted to them acts as a check upon the legislative body, and pre¬ 
vents, as a rule, the passage of laws which are objectionable to the 
people. In short, the referendum in operation would either prevent 
the lobby from infesting legislative halls to secure class legislation, or 
give to the people the power to repeal such legislation when secured. 

One of the consequences of representative government is that it soon 
develops into a government of parties, and this throws legislation 
into the hands of party leaders who are not only a mere faction of the 
nation but a mere faction of their own party. With the referendum 
in operation the people could and would pass on important measures 
of legislation singly and at a time when there was no party feeling or 
party pressure. It would invite the deliberate judgment and verdict 
of the people on great economic questions. But when men and parties 
are the issues, economic questions are largely lost sight of and votes 
are largely governed by personal and party interests. 

Every State in the American Union now recognizes the referendum 
in a modified way to a greater of less degree. Nearly every State 
constitution specifies that certain acts of legislation shall be submitted 
to a popular vote before becoming operative. Among such questions 
are the following: 

Fixing the scheme of revenue and placing limit on the taxing power. 

Exempting certain properties from taxation and detailing the manner 
of assessment. 

Establishing colleges, universities, and other institutions of learning. 

Moving State capitals. 

Establishing or prohibiting banks. 

Prohibiting the sale and manufacture of liquor, and hundreds of 
other similar questions. 

The following from the constitution of Iowa, framed in 1846, is an 
illustration: 

No act of the general assembly, authorizing or creating corporations or associa¬ 
tions with banking powers nor amendment thereto, shall take effect or in any 
manner be in force until the same shall have been submitted separately to the 
people at a general or special election, as provided by law to be held not less than 
three months after the passage of the act, and shall have been approved by a 
majority of all of the electors voting for and against it at such election. 


104 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Practically this same provision is in the State constitutions of Illi¬ 
nois, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Missouri. 

The constitution of the State of Wisconsin goes even farther and 
requires that the question of banks or no banks shall be submitted to 
the voters of the State before the legislature shall have the power to 
pass any general or special banking law, and further provides that 
after the legislature lias gotten the permission of the people to pass 
such a law, that the law so passed shall then be submitted to the vote 
of the people before it becomes operative. This is what we might 
call a double referendum, and is a remarkable instance of the existing 
faith in the wisdom of the people, as well as their distrust in repre¬ 
sentative legislative bodies. 

The constitution of the State of Iowa recognizes both the initiative 
and referendum for certain local legislation. It not only provides 
for the board of supervisors of any county submitting a large number 
of questions to a vote of the people before becoming operative, but it 
further provides that “the board shall submit the question of the 
adoption or recision of such a measure when petitioned therefor by 
one-fourth of the voters of the county, unless a different number be 
prescribed by law in any special case.” Here one-fourth of the voters 
of the county are given the power to initiate legislation by petition, 
or by petition demand that certain legislation be submitted by the 
referendum to the voters for acceptance or rejection. Hundreds of 
pages could easily be covered making such quotations from State con¬ 
stitutions and in citing instances where the initiative and referendum 
in a more or less modified form are now in operation in counties and 
municipalities. It is noticeable that the system is more frequently 
put in operation as a check on representatives who are nearest the 
people. This is because the principle is easiest applied in the small¬ 
est political divisions. But the greatest necessity for the application 
of the principle exists where representatives are farthest from the 
people—that is, in State legislatures and in Congress; but here it is 
more difficult to put the principle into practical operation on account 
of the vastness of the political divisions concerned. Now, this is the 
problem to be worked out: How to apply this democratic principle 
as a check on representatives of a government, especially on those 
representatives who are farthest removed from the people, and who, 
therefore, are more in need of such check, or rather such connection 
between them and the people. 

The last session of the Nebraska legislature applied this principle 
to the municipalities of the State. The last session of the South 
Dakota legislature submitted a constitutional amendment which will 
be passed upon by the voters of the State at their next regular elec¬ 
tion, incorporating the initiative and referendum into their State con¬ 
stitution. Bills looking to the application of this principle have been 
introduced in probably half of the State legislatures of the Union. 
The sentiment in favor of this democratic principle will continue to 
grow. 

The right of petition was wrung from the Crown of England by our 
ancestors, and has ever since been counted one of the priceless privi¬ 
leges and rights of a free people. The initiative proposes to make 
effective the ancient right of petition—to make the petition of a cer¬ 
tain per cent of the people effective; that is, force the representatives 
of the people to pass upon the law petitioned for and submit it to a 
popular vote. 

The referendum—that is the optional referendum—is simply to 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


105 


restore to the people the power, when a certain per cent of the voters 
petition therefor, to pass upon any important acts of their representa¬ 
tives by popular vote. This application of these great democratic prin¬ 
ciples to a representative form of government, it would seem, would 
produce the ideal popular government; it would produce what we 
might call a democratic republic. When the wishes of the people 
were disregarded or their rights and interests were betrayed, they 
would have the power to protect the body politic from the results of 
such evils. It would seem that no man could oppose the practical 
application of this democratic principle unless he at heart is opposed 
to popular government. 


Appendix No. 14. 

[From The Coming Nation, a weekly published at Ruskin, Tenn., No. 137, January 4,1896.] 

AS AN EDUCATIONAL FORCE—HAVING ELECTED A REPRESENTA¬ 
TIVE FOR A STATED TERM THE AMERICAN CITIZEN’S INFLUENCE 

CEASES. 

[By Moses Oppenheimer, New York, N. Y.] 

It is a singular fact that the debates and transactions of our legis¬ 
lative bodies, both Federal and State, attract very little attention 
among the rank and file of our voting population. In Great Britain, 
in France, even in Germany and Austria-Hungary the doings of the 
parliaments are followed with close attention by a larger body of 
voters. The daily papers feel obliged to print reports, giving them 
not only considerable space, but also editorial discussion. In the 
United States this duty is performed in a rather perfunctory manner, 
manifestly because there is no real and effective demand for better 
service. Only on special occasions, as for instance an account of a 
scandal or a row, or else when partisan advantages are at stake, do 
we evince real interest in the proceedings of our legislative bodies. 

Inquiry into this condition of affairs has led me to the conclusion 
that such lack of live interest results from the fact, consciously or 
instinctively recognized, that the American citizen after having elected 
a representative for a stated term ceases to have any influence over 
him or his actions. As a rule, our Senators, Congressmen, and legis¬ 
lators do not even report at the close of a session to their constitu¬ 
ents anything regarding their participation in legislative action. Real 
responsibility, even of a moral kind only, exists in no discernible 
manner. The results of this system are only too well known. It 
opens the door to the most unscrupulous abuse of powers intrusted, 
to bargains and corruption untold. 

If for no other reason, I would favor direct legislation for the whole¬ 
some educational influence resulting from this system. I have seen 
it at work in Switzerland when at the time of my stay it had been in 
existence for more than a decade. Direct legislation has forced the 
voters to take a keen and active interest in public affairs. 

Since a whole voting body can not be bribed or purchased, each 
Swiss has to try and win voters by solid arguments. The discussions 
in public assemblies, as well as in the press, are carried on without 
buncomb, in a sober, matter-of-fact way, singularly clear and con¬ 
vincing in tone. The voter feels that he bears directly a distinct 
share of responsibility, and he tries to discharge his duty to the Com- 



106 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


monwealth honestly and conscientiously. Party lines are not drawn 
as hard and fast as they are in the United States. Each issue arising 
is judged on its merits. Mistakes may be made now and then, but 
they are of rare occurrence and soon rectified. The average Swiss 
voter is perhaps the most painstaking and intelligent of any nation 
that I know of. 

The elevating influence of direct legislation has also exercised its 
force upon the Swiss press. Even the small weekly and semiweekly 
papers show a remarkable degree of editorial ability as far as discus¬ 
sion of public affairs is concerned. They are far superior to period¬ 
icals of the same class in Germany or here. An honest and trusted 
editor wields often greater influence than the gifted orator of the fed¬ 
eral council. 

The people feel that their sovereignty is not merely an empty phrase 
to be dinned into their ears in spread-eagle oratory. 

The American voter, intelligent, alert, honest, and conscientious 
on the whole, needs a system that will restore to him confidence in his 
power, and that will rouse him to the realization of his grave respon¬ 
sibility to coming generations. In my judgment, direct legislation will 
give him all that. 


Appendix No. 15. 

[From The Coming Nation, a weekly published at Ruskin, Tenn., No. 137, January 4,1896.] 

A PARLIAMENT FOR MAN—WITH THE INITIATIVE TO FORCE THE 

REPEAL AND THE REFERENDUM TO PREVENT THE ENACTMENT 

OF BAD LAWS. 

[By Hon. Thomas McEwan, Jr., member of Congress, Seventh district of New Jersey.] 

All kinds of government have been tried and each has been found 
defective in promoting the end of government, which is the greatest 
good to the greatest number. A careful review of history confirms me 
in this statement. There have been times under all forms of govern¬ 
ment when the source of power has been so good and so really great 
that the end of government has been obtained, notwithstanding the 
form of government. This does not disprove the proposition that all 
forms of government have been found defective. It only proves that 
commendation was due the man and not the system. 

The difficulty with all forms of government is that a human being 
must be the administer or a legislator of that government. Now, we 
are all human, and being human, have the failings of humanity. 

Undoubtedly the greatest and most general failing is that of selfish¬ 
ness, or, to put it less harshly, a proneness to have our own interests 
and those of the persons bound to us by ties of kinship in an ever 
widening circle more in our mind and heart than those of others, 
called, in this case, the public. 

If we can find some way to either eliminate this selfishness or else 
assimilate it with capacity for public life, then we shall have traveled 
far in our journey to find a promised land, a land where, if there be 
not milk and honey for all, there shall be the necessaries of life for 
those who are willing to toil. 

This form of government is found in that which gives a veto power 
to the citizens, as the body politic, against all legislation that is 
inimical to their interests. The men selected by the voters would be 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


107 


of those of great capacity for public affairs, as it would be to the 
interests of the citizens to select such men. Although men of this 
class are frequently selected under our present system, they being 
men of ability in most instances use that ability not for the public 
good but for their own personal advantage. The people, having the 
veto power on legislation, when men of that kind were selected, would 
have the benefit of their ability and yet have a check upon their nat¬ 
ural inclination to profit at the expense of the public. The men 
selected then, knowing that bad enactments would be frustrated, 
would use their abilities in ascertaining and bringing laws for the 
public welfare, in order that they might be prolonged in their office 
and that they might have their ambition satisfied by holding for a 
long time places of public trust and righteous profit. We would then 
have a weeding out of faithless and incapable officeholders and a 
retention of men of national ability, to which would be added expe¬ 
rience, that great requirement in public officials. 

This is the theory of the referendum; a submission to the voters of 
such laws as a certain number of voters ask to have placed before 
the entire body of voters for confirmation or rejection. Such a rad¬ 
ical departure from existing laws in a country as quiet as ours ought 
not to be made, if the principle of the proposed change has not else¬ 
where borne the test of experience. We who advocate the refer¬ 
endum are fortunate in being able to point to a nation somewhat 
analogous to our own in its general governmental phases, in which 
the initiative and the referendum have for many years been in prac¬ 
tical operation, to the great advantage of its people. Switzerland is 
an exception to the rule stated at the beginning of this article. It 
has the initiative and the referendum. In that land there is very 
little poverty and few possessors of enormous fortunes, that menace 
of all time to the duration of representative governments. It is more 
nearly a land of contentment than any other of which I know. 

A phase of this agitation upon which I love to think is that the 
advocates of this proposed system can have no selfish interests to 
impel them to its advocacy. They are wholly actuated by unselfish¬ 
ness and by love for the “common people.” 

We are not remitted to Switzerland only as an example, for there 
was at one time in Rome a system by which tribunals of the people 
were elected and who really represented the people and their wishes, 
and history informs us that it was a period of contentment, and of 
peace and prosperity at home and abroad for the Romans. 

The signs of the times all point to the necessity of the “slackening 
of the reins ” by bosses and parties, the yielding of something to the 
good of the people, the changing of laws that permit the acquiring of 
fortunes of hundreds of millions of dollars, the doing away with cor¬ 
ruption in public life, and, in short, the stopping of surreptitiously 
“ grinding the faces of the poor ” under the sanction of laws passed by 
nefarious means. 

Our governmental officers of all kinds, state and national, executive, 
legislative, and judicial, ought, as their oaths oblige them to do, to 
discharge their respective duties with “an eye single” to the public 
weal; that is, in this country, for the good of the majority. 

Our observation and experience show us, in many cases, this has 
not been done, and only by the initiative, to force the repeal of bad 
laws and the referendum to prevent the enactment of bad laws, can 
it be secured. 

It is an honest means, a patriotic purpose, and can not be objected 


108 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


to by anyone who believes that “all men are created equal” and 
hopes that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, 
and that “government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people,” by reason of the iniquity and oppression of its officials and 
the culpable supineness of its people, by revolution or by inherent 
dry rot, “ shall not perish from the earth.” 


Appendix No. 16. 

THE CAUSE OF THE EVIL AND THE REMEDY. 

[From a circular issued by the Initiative and Referendum League of South Dakota.] 

Our legislators are our agents and can bind us forever. We say 
that our representatives are responsible to us now; but if some one 
asks us wherein they are responsible we can only say, “If they do not 
vote to suit us we will not reelect them.” 

But when the vote granting a franchise binds us forever, and our 
representative can get $50,000 for his vote while we only give him $300 
for his year’s work (even if we should reelect him), where is his 
responsibility? 

The State or city is our farm. At present we give our servants 
(legislators, aldermen) almost unlimited power over it—power to mar 
it; power to mortgage it—reserving to ourselves scarcely any power 
except to discharge them after the harm is fully accomplished. 

The city is our stable, which we commit to these servants, reserving 
to ourselves only the power to discharge them after they have allowed 
our horses to be stolen. 

The constitution is our pasture fence; the State is our carriage; our 
legislators are our horses. With the present arrangements we har¬ 
ness our horses, hitch them (often wild colts) to our carriage, throw 
away lines and whip, and trust ourselves to the tender mercies of 
Providence, which is supposed to have special care of half-witted peo¬ 
ple. Our horses may balk or lie down in the harness, or they may 
wildly tear over the pasture, down steep gullies, over rocky roads, and 
finally knock our brains out, but we have all the time the comforting 
assurance that our bones will be found somewhere within the limits 
of the seven-rail pasture fence called the constitution. With the ini¬ 
tiative and the referendum we would be at all times masters of the 
situation, keeping the government constantly in our own hands. 

Our legislators are our tailors. We will still have to pay them, but 
we will not need then, as now, to wear the coat if it does not fit. 

Our legislators and aldermen are our shoemakers, and now the 
shoes they make we must wear, no matter how much they may pinch 
our feet. Sometimes the shoes they make for us seem to be cast iron, 
but wear them we must, or the sheriff arrests us for breaking the laws. 
The referendum gives us the power to throw away the shoes if they 
cramp our feet or pinch our corns. 

Our legislators are our cooks, and now we must not only pay them 
their salaries, but also eat all they cook for us. Ugh ! The nastiness 
of some of the messes we have been made to swallow. With the 
referendum, when they set before us some unsavory dish we say, 
“No, thank you,” and pass it by. With the initiative, when they 
refuse to cook for us we make out a bill of fare and have our meals 
cooked to order. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


109 


The people have concluded that making law bj^ proxy is even more 
unsatisfactory than making love by proxy, and so will soon proceed to 
make laws as they make love, in person, which is simply the initia¬ 
tive and the referendum. 

The will of the majority is the natural law of every society, and the only sure 
guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes err, but its 
errors are honest, solitary, and short-lived. Let us forever bow down to the gen¬ 
eral reason of society.—(Thomas Jefferson.) 


Appendix No. 17. 

THE BREAKDOWN OF LEGISLATURES. 

[Editorial from Harper’s Weekly.] 

Legislatures in a great majority of the States assembled early in 
Januaiy. Most of them have already adjourned, and the record of 
those which are still in session is practically made up. With only 
rare exceptions, the people are profoundly dissatisfied with the work 
of their representatives. In some cases incompetency and inefficiency 
during the regular session have forced the calling of an extra session 
to transact absolutely essential business; in others weeks have been 
wasted in deadlocks over the choice of United States Senators, and in 
Oregon the entire session was thus wrecked; in still other cases, and 
these the most numerous of all, the lawmakers have passed many 
unwise, reckless, and mischievous measures, or have only been 
restrained from such action by earnest expressions of public disap¬ 
proval. 

There is a practical breakdown of our legislative system. It has 
ceased to be a representative system. Popular education is more 
general than ever before, the standard of public morality is higher 
than it used to be, the present efficiency of men in private business 
was never approached in the past. Theoretically the men chosen to a 
legislature represent the people. If the people are gaining in educa¬ 
tion, morality, and efficiency the men whom they elect to make laws 
for them should reflect this improvement. Yet there is general agree¬ 
ment throughout the country that legislators were never before so 
careless in the framing of laws, so ignorant as to the fundamental 
principles of government, so open to corrupt influences. 

So utterly unrepresentative have legislatures in many States become 
that they pass bills which are plainly opposed to the interests of their 
constituents, or are only deterred by the most energetic demonstra¬ 
tions on the part of the people. The new constitution of New York 
requires every bill affecting any city to be submitted to the mayor of 
that city, after it passage at Albany, for his approval or disapproval. 
If he objects to its enactment, the legislature may still pass it again, 
and if the governor shall sign, it may become a law; but the plain 
intention of the constitutional provision is to furnish official evidence 
of local sentiment on the subject, with the expectation that such 
expression will be decisive. Nevertheless, the last legislature in 
every case where a mayor disapproved its action passed the bill a 
second time, often with every expression of contempt for the opposing 
sentiment to which the mayor had given voice. 

A controversy over street railway franchises in Chicago recently 
came to a head in the Illinois legislature. There was no doubt what- 



110 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


ever as to the feeling of the people most affected by the proposed leg¬ 
islation. It was made plain in every possible way—through the press, 
by public meetings, by statements sent to the capital. Chicago was 
as nearly unanimous as a great city ever can be in opposing a bill 
which would give the present street railway companies a monopoly of 
transportation privileges for fifty years. Yet the obnoxious bill was 
easily pushed through the senate and was only halted in the house by 
the holding of an impressive mass meeting in Chicago, at which cool- 
headed speakers sternly rebuked those representatives who should be 
faithless to the interests of the people* 

What is the explanation of all this? Why do our legislators decline 
in intelligence, efficiency, and character as the standard of each of 
these qualities rises among the masses? Why has the relation of the 
lawmaker to the general public undergone so revolutionary a change 
that the ancient title ‘‘representative of the people ’ has become 
often an absurd misnomer? Why do we have to hold public meetings 
and to organize committees to visit State capitals while our legisla¬ 
tures are in session to keep them from passing unwise, unjust, and 
corrupt measures, to which the great majority of the voters are 
opposed? 

The answer to all such questions, puzzling as they seem at first 
thought, is really very simple. Legislatures as they were originally 
conceived are breaking down because the representative character of 
their members has changed. They have not ceased to represent some¬ 
body. They are as responsible now as they ever were in the past; 
but they represent a small organized element of the voters which is 
under the control of the “ machine,” and they are responsible to the 
boss of that machine. The founders of our system of government 
expected that legislators would heed the wishes of those to whom they 
owed their seats. They do recognize that obligation still. The only 
difference is that a large proportion of the members now secure the 
nomination which results in their election from an “organization” of 
a small number of the voters in one party. Knowing that the people 
had nothing to do with their choice, they feel that they owe allegiance 
only to the machine which gave them their seats. 


Appendix No. 18. 

[From The Direct Legislation Record, June, 1897, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 
IMPRESSION OF LEGISLATIVE WORK FROM THE INSIDE. 

[By Hon. L. E. Rader, member of Washington legislature.] 

Your invitation to write of my impressions of the workings of a 
legislature recall to mind the closing lines of a fugitive poem, with 
a Will Carlton rhythm to it: 

He writes from out in Denver, an’ the story’s mighty short; 

I just can’t tell his mother, it’ll crush her poor oT heart! 

An’ so I reckon, parson, you might break the news to her— 

Bill’s in the legislature but he doesn’t say what fur. 

To the uninitiated the workings of a legislature would seem to be a 
matter of course—just start the thing going and it will run itself. 
Imagine a good business man selecting a corps of clerks—in many 
cases without any regard for competency, honesty, or experience—all 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Ill 


more or less unknown to each other, and expect them to conduct his 
business successfully! Add to this the further fact that said busi¬ 
ness man should demand that two years’ work must be done in sixty 
or ninety days, with no power to annul or change the work done, and 
you have a sample of the average legislature. Candidly, what can 
the people expect from the “workings” of such a body? 

The first ten days of a legislative session are consumed in organiza¬ 
tion, introducing bills, waiting for them to be printed and placed upon 
the desks of members, preparatory to entering upon their considera¬ 
tion. Then usually follows a senatorial fight, which is the most 
demoralizing feature of any session, absorbing the entire attention of 
the members, corrupting many and preparing them to be ready and 
active tools of the hordes of lobbyists infesting the capitol. Often¬ 
times committees have been appointed for senatorial purposes, and 
not for efficient and rapid legislative work. During the senatorial 
fight it is difficult to secure full committee meetings, much less to 
secure intelligent action on measures in either of the legislative bodies. 

Legislation—the true business of a legislature—has thus ‘ ‘ gone glim¬ 
mering ” for more than half of the session. Scarcely a bill has gone 
to third reading and final passage in either house. Indeed, I believe 
I will not err when I say that fully two-thirds of the bills of a session 
are passed during the last two weeks. The haste consequent upon the 
desire of the members to see various pet measures become laws, and 
the persistent activity on the part of the lobby in the interest of cor¬ 
porations and classes, make these closing days of the session the most 
interesting and dangerous. This period is the most trying, also, to 
the honest-intentioned and watchful legislator who is endeavoring to 
guard that great army of constituents who are unrepresented in the 
“third house.” Had such a man numberless eyes, ears, and tongues, 
and a brain capacity beyond any yet known, he would have need of 
them all in order to successfully combat all the schemes for robbery 
and plunder that are hatched in the lobby’s incubator during these 
closing hours. 

Here is the condition—it is not a theory. Work is done on the elec¬ 
trical plan—the ‘ 4 railroading ” is now entirely too slow. Bill after bill 
is hurried through with barely an opportunity to read the title as you 
turn the leaves of your files. Efforts to check such hasty work are 
futile, for the necessary trades have been arranged and the deals 
made, and the “you support my bill and I’ll vote for yours” process 
goes merrily on. Along with this helter-skelter game goes numerous 
conference committees. Picture to yourself a small room, illy venti¬ 
lated, with ten or twenty men therein, full of the fumes of smoke and 
bourbon, and there you have a sample of the average legislative 
machinery. Here is where bills involving perhaps millions of dollars 
are passed upon. Is it any wonder our legislatures are a failure? 

What is the remedy? Make the fireside the court of final resort, lop 
off one branch of the legislature, reduce the number of members of the 
remaining body to not "more than 25 or 50, according to the size of the 
State, pay the members by the year, and make the session continu¬ 
ous. When the people have power to pass upon all legislation a large 
body is unnecessary; besides a small body can work more rapidly. 
Giving all their time to the work, it would enable legislators to con¬ 
sider all matters with proper care and permit them to make a special 
study of their work. They could investigate the laws of other States 
and other nations, and apply such as would prove beneficial to their 
own commonwealth. Better and more capable men would occupy 
S. fi>or. SO-40 


112 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC 


seats in our legislative bodies, and length of service would be consid¬ 
ered an advantage to the people, hence men of experience would be 
found there. Give us these changes and the “workings of a legisla¬ 
ture ” would not be so slovenly and so unproductive of good results. 


[By Hon. Persifor M. Cooke, member Colorado legislature.] 

The almost obsequiousness of State officials and the fear among 
those benefiting by present conditions early showed me what was the 
position that the legislature occupied. Before we finished, both 
classes proved that they knew how to care for their own. And the 
strange thing was the ease with which they succeeded by appealing to 
party prejudices, to the selfishness of men or friendship to individuals 
or fear of offending certain interests. 

I think that there are too many “checks” on legislation. There for 
the alleged purpose of preventing vicious, hasty legislation, they equally 
operate to prevent good; and in these days of the public school and 
newspapers, freedom to act is of more importance than checks. If 
the people’s representatives betray them, have it so there is no ques¬ 
tion about the responsibility, and let the people at them. 

Two houses is a mistake. Legislation by one is constantly ham¬ 
pered by allegations by interested parties of what the other will do 
or not do, jealousies between the two promoted, a bill which passes 
one house goes to the other, and is apt to be there neglected, because 
the members are only interested in their own. 

By the time a bill has filtered through one house it’s pretty well 
sized up, but some measures were “snaked” through one without 
change, on the plea that they would be made right in the other. This 
tends to lessen the sense of responsibility. 

The veto power to-day is in the wrong place. It is hard to get away 
from the “one good man to protect us idea,” instead of accustoming 
the people to care for themselves. The governor is surrounded in the 
privacy of his office with the public knows not what influence, and if 
he does right it is indeed to be wondered at. 

Some committees have too much work and others have nothing to 
do, and so measures are delayed; some are held back willfully; some 
are delayed through the paid services of a clerk; then some are 
advanced or retarded on the calendar. The chief trouble is that 
usually a bill for the general good gets a “God bless you” from citi¬ 
zens, while the private interests, whose hands are to be holden from 
picking and stealing, will come up and work against it by fair means 
and foul. 

Then, almost every legislator is new at his business and has his 
experience to gain, and that takes most of the session; no amount of 
urging would induce application to work in the first ten weeks, and 
during the last three it was of little avail. 

We are paid a per diem and the session limited to ninety days. 
This limiting the session is a first-class way to prevent legislation. 
If the pay were so much per term and the legislature were to sit at its 
own expense after the ninety days, they would accomplish better 
work, and yet not sit too long. Now, in the last days much bad legis¬ 
lation is rushed through and the good prevented. 

I believe that we must have the referendum, that the people may, 
in sober second thought, sit in judgment on the action of their repre¬ 
sentatives; that the government may be carried on in each case by the 
consent of the governed; and in the initiative to compel unwilling 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 113 

servants to act; and in both as the only means whereby public opinion 
may really express itself, or may be truly ascertained. 


[By Hon. W. S. U’Ren, member of the Oregon legislature.] 

Our Oregon legislature failed to organize because of vices that are 
an inseparable part of the system of government by a political party. 

The minority in a partisan legislative body has no rights. The 
party or faction that elects the speaker has absolute power. The 
minority can not obtain a hearing for any bill or resolution, nor even 
get one reported from a committee, except as a favor—never as a 
matter of right and justice. 

The minority has no appeal to the people on the merits of any meas¬ 
ure, but is absolutely at the mercy of a partisan majority, which 
desires, first and above all things, the destruction of the opposing 
party and the defeat of its important measures, regardless of their 
merits. 

Therefore, every possible effort is put forth by every faction in our 
legislatures to elect the speaker; not because that insures passage of 
their bills, but because it does promise them consideration in com¬ 
mittee or before the house. Our experience in Oregon last winter 
was the logical result of the system of lawmaking by a party. 

In the house of representatives were 28 Mitchell Republicans, 1 
Mitchell Democrat, and 1 Independent Republican—just one-half the 
members. On the other side were 13 Populists, 3 Union Bimetallists, 
3 Democrats, 4 Free-Silver Republicans, and 7 Gold-Standard Repub¬ 
licans—5 minorities combined, being just half the members of the 
house. This combination was possible; first, because the minority 
has no rights; second, because of the dislike and distrust felt by these 
Republicans for John H. Mitchell, candidate to succeed himself as 
United States Senator. - Either half could have forced the other half 
to help organize at any time, but neither dared to do so, for fear the 
other would by some trick or scheme elect the speaker and control 
the house. 

The Populists offered to assist either faction of the Republicans in 
the election of a Republican speaker satisfactory to the Populists, if 
they were assured of the passage through the house of two bills pro¬ 
viding for registration of voters and for representation for the three 
parties on boards of election, and amendment to the constitution for 
the initiative and optional referendum. 

If a reasonable number of voters cojild by petition have compelled 
the submission of these measures to all the people at the ballot box 
the Populists would have taken chances on any speaker rather than 
to refuse to organize. With such a direct power of appeal to the 
people on any particular measure the majority would not seek to pre¬ 
vent the legislative consideration of any measure on its merits, either 
by pigeonholing the bill or denying a hearing to its advocates. 

Therefore such a hold-up of a legislative body would be impossible 
in a State having the initiative and referendum in operation. 

This would have been impossible also without the election of a 
United States Senator by the legislature, because neither of the Repub¬ 
lican factions would probably have allied itself with the Populists if 
there had been harmony among them on the Senatorial question. 

It seems to me that our recent experience is only another example 
of the failure of representative government—a very valuable object 
lesson, showing the need of election by the people, not only of all 
S. Doc. 340-8 



114 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

important officials, but also—when demanded by a reasonable number 
of voters—a yes and no vote by the people at the ballot box on any 
act of those officials. 

More power in the hands of all the voters and less power in the 
hands of the officers. 


Appendix No. 19. 

PARLIAMENT IS OVER. 

[From the London Clarion in July, 1897.] 

Parliament having broken up at a comparatively early date, and 
after a comparatively uneventful session, a casual review may not be 
such a hopeless waste of time as might at first sight be suspected. 

As a representative assembly, the House of Commons can hardly 
be considered a success; as a legislative machine, it is little better 
than a failure; as a sample of that mingled cant, hypocrisy, double 
dealing, incapacity, selfishness, cowardice, and bluster, which we call 
statesmanship, it is about as good, or as bad, as might be expected, 
considering the materials of which it is composed. 

The lawyers, colonels, brewers, financiers, place hunters, company 
mongers, manufacturers, and railway directors, whether calling them¬ 
selves Liberals or Tories, are actuated by one and the same intention, 
namely, to protect their own interests at whatever cost of their con¬ 
stituents or the State. The remainder of the people’s representatives 
mainly consist of provincial Radical bigwigs, who know little of poli¬ 
tics; aristocratic young Conservatives, who knnw less; and a dozen or 
so of nominal Labor members, who wear silk hats, and strive more or 
less successfully to resist temptation. 

That much could be expected from such an assembly, even if its 
members really desired or attempted to do their best, can not be sup¬ 
posed. But its members have neither the knowledge, wisdom, nor 
industry to make them effective politicians; nor have they, except in 
very few instances, sufficient earnestness, self-sacrifice, or honor to 
desire the welfare of their country at the cost of their own disadvan¬ 
tage. In short, they can not do what they undertake to do if they 
would, and would not care to do it if they could. 

Mr. Wallace, M. P., in an article in the Progressive Review, says 
that two-thirds of the members it is impossible to regard with any¬ 
thing like intellectual respect, and that a large section of the house 
ought not to be there at all. As a simple matter of fact, a large sec¬ 
tion of the house seldom is there at all! Barely a tenth part of the 
members listen to the debates, hardly a quarter of them take part in 
the divisions, and of these a large proportion lounge on the terrace 
or in the smoking room, and simply walk into the lobbies to give their 
votes with the “ayes” or “noes,” as the party whip instructs them, 
and knowing or caring nothing of the merits of the matter their 
votes are to decide. 

And what of the events of the session and their effect on the for¬ 
tunes of parties and persons? Something has been done by the Con¬ 
servative government for the parsons this year for their services at 
the last general election, as something was done for the landlords last 
year for the same reason. And now something yet remains to be 
done for the publicans, who had a still larger share in the great Con- 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


115 


servative victory. In addition, large sums have been spent on the 
royal navy and the royal jubilee; some £6,000 has been found to 
increase the miserable wages of the laborers in the royal dockyards, 
while some £250,000 is to be spent on a royal yacht. Much sham 
indignation has been forthcoming over the barbarities of infidel Turks 
in Armenia and Crete, and many specious excuses have been made 
for the barbarities of Christian Englishmen in South Africa, and the 
Government has passed a compensation for injuries bill, which many 
of their own supporters did not relish, and only a few of the Radical 
opposition had the courage to oppose. Generally speaking, it may 
be said the Government has improved its position, and the opposition, 
by its apathy, insincerity, and disagreement, is hopelessly discredited 
and disgraced. 

That the above brief review can give satisfaction, even to those 
who believe, or profess to believe, in party government by profes¬ 
sional politicians, it is difficult to suppose; while it is becoming more 
and more obvious to the sane and earnest minority who are anxious 
for the progress of their country, that Parliament, as an institution, 
has almost outlived its usefulness, and is rapidly becoming a tedious 
and mischievous absurdity. 

M. B. 


Appendix No. 20. 

[From the Direct Legislative Record, September, 1895.] 

A CONTRAST. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

I.—LEGISLATURES WHICH ARE RULERS, HAVING DELEGATED BUT 
IRRESPONSIBLE AND UNCHECKED AUTHORITY. 

GENERAL STATEMENT. 

[From Suggestions on Government, by S. E. Moffett.] 

' Our legislative bodies are suffering from the general paralysis of 
parliamentary government all over the world, and this paralysis is 
specially marked in Congress, where intelligent energy should be most 
conspicuous. It is becoming almost impossible to pass an important 
measure to which powerful interests are opposed. The time of Con¬ 
gress is wasted in roll calls, futile attempts to hold evasive quorums, 
floods of superfluous talk and obsolete ceremonies, and all the chan¬ 
nels of legislation are choked by gorges of unnecessary bills. State 
legislatures have generally fallen into contempt, and city councils 
beneath it. 

CONGRESS. 

[From the Outlook (religious).] 

Congress has adjourned. It has lived without achievement; it dies 
without honor. It was elected by an overwhelming majority. At the 
end of its career it was defeated by a majority not less significant. 
The American people has little patience with a party which does not 
know its own mind, has no definite purpose, and lacks even the capac¬ 
ity to follow its leaders. * * * In a nation, as in an individual, the 

worst of all blunders is vacillation. 



116 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

[From the New York Herald.] 

Congress drew its final official breath amid a wild saturnalia. 
Champagne flowed like water, women of ill repute swarmed the corri¬ 
dors and sang songs in the public restaurants with inebriated Con¬ 
gressmen in the small hours of the morning. Between roll calls mem¬ 
bers staggered between their places and the bottle. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

[From Harper’s Weekly.] 

It has been widely and most regretfully noticed that during the last 
ten years or so the Massachusetts legislature, once a body of excep¬ 
tional purity, intelligence, and pubic spirit, has become more and 
more an assemblage of ordinary political hacks accessible to corrupt 
influences. 


NEW YORK. 

[From the Review of Reviews.] 

Republican politicians at Albany turned out to be as selfish and 
unscrupulous as their Democratic predecessors had been. The oppo¬ 
sition of Mr. Platt and his friends wretchedly mutilated the reform 
programme. 

[From the Outlook (religious).] 

Distrust of legislatures has been widened and deepened by the rec¬ 
ord of the New York body just adjourned. * * * This legislature, 

more than any other of recent years, was elected on the pledge of 
reform. * * * It was pledged to ballot reform, and passed a 
blanket ballot bill which permits the ballot of the bribed voter to be 
identified by the purchasers. 

It was pledged to a corrupt practices act, requiring sworn itemized 
statements of the receipts and expenditures of campaign committees, 
and ignominiously rejected all measures designed to fulfill this pledge. 

It was pledged to public school reform, and defeated the bill which 
had the support of all the reform organizations. 

It was, above all things, pledged to the complete overthrow of the 
Tammany Hall police system, yet it passed the police bill making 
mandatory the Tammany system of a bipartisan commission and then 
rejected the bill giving the honorable commissioners appointed by 
Mayor Strong the power to reorganize the Tammany force. 

[From the New York World.] 

The New York State legislature of 1895 was probably the most 
incompetent, vicious, and useless that the people were ever called upon 
to pay for. The session itself cost the 7,000,000 people of the State 
almost as much as the 1894 term of the British Parliament, which made 
laws for 300,000,000 of its citizens and colonists, and about one-sixth 
as much as the second session of the Fifty-third Congress, which legis¬ 
lated for 70,000,000. 


Name. 

No. of 
laws. 

Cost of 
maintenance. 

Congress. 

351 

266 

$3,477,834 

468,640 

420,000 

British Parliament.. 

New York legislature, about... 

700 











117 


DIRECT LEGISLATION. ETC. 

The session started off with a fair promise of accompiismng enough 
good laws to justify a three months’ session. The Republican party 
was in control of every branch. Yet with everything in its hands and 
a fixed programme of fair promises in which all factions of the party 
were in accord, the session had not progressed two weeks before prom¬ 
ises were scattered to the winds and a disgraceful policy of bossism, 
extravagance, and downright defiance of public interests was adopted 
and put into operation. 

MICHIGAN. 

[From the Detroit Free Press.] 

It would be impossible within a reasonable space to record the sins 
of commission and omission committed by the present legislature. 
They would justify a serial, in which the confiding taxpayers would 
trace a political tragedy with them as the victims and the machine a 
veritable juggernaut. * * * The legislature has been nothing 

better than a tool, and the tool of the very influence whose selfish inter¬ 
ests are thoroughly antagonistic to the true interests of the State. 
Whatever the machine has asked has been granted. The railroads 
are getting tenfold for their outlay in making fools and dupes of the 
legislators. * * * The whole course of the legislators is indicative 

of venality and of servility to the machine. Lobbyists may have had 
less expensive work in times past, but they never found it easier. 
Our mis representatives go so far as to say that the people shall not 
voice their opinion upon a great constitutional question. They are 
without rights which the legislators are bound to respect. It is for the 
machine and the corporations. * * * We have in Michigan the 

most terrible example yet furnished in a time of profound peace of 
what calamities may result from a perversion of the principles of rep¬ 
resentative government. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

[From the Voice (Prohibition).] 

The Pennsylvania legislature expired to-day without a mourner. 
In the early part of the evening a number of the members were visibly 
affected by liquor, and with howls, yells, and whistling did all in their 
power to make night hideous. The climax was reached at midnight. 
Then it was that the most disgraceful scenes that have ever occurred 
within the halls of the State capitol took place. * * * Some of the 

members were not satisfied with what they could drink, but threw the 
liquor over each other, so that when they emerged from the room they 
were spattered with beer from head to foot; others carried bottles 
with them; others had lunch sent to them at their desks, where they 
entertained their “lady” friends. 

INDIANA. 

[From the Review-Herald, Battle Creek, Mich, (religious).] 

The Indiana legislature has won for itself a distinction for defiance 
of law, even in days of lawlessness. A Republican legislature has 
struggled for supremacy with a Democratic executive, and the contest 
culminated on the night of the lltli in a wild riot. Chairs, revolvers, 
books, fists, and boots were freely used. More than a score were 
severely injured. * * * 

The disgraceful scenes that are witnessed in some of our legislatures 
are sufficient to cause a deep blush of shame on the cheek of every 


118 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

American. There can be no honor or dignity in the name that is 
trailed in the dust by drunken and debauched legislators. * * * 

When lawmakers become a howling mob, bent on defeating the oper¬ 
ation of the law, where is the safety of the country ? That mob accom¬ 
plished in that way what other legislatures have done by intrigue, and 
what others are more liable to do in the same way. In these things 
we read the ominous signs of the times of peril into which we have 
already entered. 

ILLINOIS. 

[Prom the Chicago Times-Herald. ] 

ENDED IN INFAMY—DISGRACEFUL CLOSING SCENES OF THE ILLINOIS LEGISLA¬ 
TURE—FIGHT FOR THE MONOPOLIES—LAWS VIOLATED IN ORDER TO PASS THE 

CRAWFORD BILLS. 

If the honest, law-abiding people of Illinois could have been present 
in Springfield to witness the extraordinary closing hours of the thirty- 
ninth general assembly, they would have been led seriously to doubt 
whether there exists in this State a republican form of government. 

ARKANSAS. 

[From the Farmers’ Tribune.] 

Evidence accumulates that the old political parties are rotten. The 
legislature has not, since Treasurer Woodruff cleaned out the treas¬ 
ury, experienced such a sensation as when Representative Yancy dis¬ 
closed how the Iron Mountain Railroad had been able to buy and 
control the legislature of the State at $100 per vote. There is no 
doubt that enough legislators were under pay to swing the vote in the 
favor of the railway company. 

Facts like the foregoing cry aloud for the adoption of the successful 
Swiss method of the referendum. This knocks the lobbyist out of a 
job and reduces the opportunity for bribery almost to nothing. 

TEXAS. 

[James Armstrong, in The Coming Nation.] 

With the exception of prayer, excursions, and the payment of sal¬ 
aries, I know nothing which that august body has successfully done. 
They have insisted on mileage while traveling on passes, and laughed 
to scorn every proposition to curtail expenses. Their conduct from 
the first day of their meeting has elicited nothing save my sovereign 
disgust. 

Hundreds of other quotations could be given, but these are enough. 
How the reverse. 

II.—LEGISLATURES WHICH ARE SERVANTS, HAVING DELEGATED BUT 
RESPONSIBLE AND CHECKED AUTHORITY. 

SWITZERLAND. 

[Prom the Swiss Republic, by Boyd Winchester.] 

One in visiting the chambers of the assembly is much impressed 
with the smooth and quiet dispatch of business. The members are 
not seated with any reference to their political affiliations. There is 
no filibustering, no vexatious points of order, no drastic rules of clo¬ 
ture to ruffle the decorum of the proceedings. Interruptions are few, 
and angry personal bickerings never occur. * * * Leaves to print or 
a written speech memorized and passionately declaimed are unknown. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


119 


There are none of those extraneous and soliciting conditions to invite 
to “buncombe” speeches. The debates are more in the nature of an 
informal consultation of business men about common interests. They 
talk and vote, and there is an end of it. This easy, colloquial dispo¬ 
sition of affairs by no means implies any slip-shod indifference or 
superficial method of legislation. There is no legislative body where 
important questions are treated in a more fundamental and critical 
manner. 

The members of the assembly practically enjoy life tenure. Reelec¬ 
tion, alike in the whole confederation, and in the single canton, is the 
rule. Death and voluntary retirement account for nineteen out of 
the twenty-one new members at the last general election. There are 
members who have served continuously since the organization of the 
assembly, in 1848. To some extent this remarkable retention of mem¬ 
bers of the assembly may be ascribed to the fact that the people feel 
that they are masters through the power of rejecting all measures 
which are put to a popular vote. 

The members of the Federal Council can be and are continually 
reelected, notwithstanding sharp antagonisms among themselves, and 
it may be between them and a majority in the assembly. They also 
continue to discharge their administrative duties, whether the meas¬ 
ures submitted by them are or are not sanctioned by the voters. The 
Swiss distinguish between men and measures. They retain valued 
servants in their emplo 3 unent, even though they reject their advice. 

* * * This sure tenure of service makes those chosen look upon it 

as the business of their lives. Without this permanence, such men 
as now fill it could not be induced to do so. 

[From the Swiss Confederation, by Sir F. O. Adams and C. D. Cunningham.] 

The Swiss voter is quite ready to vote again and again for the same 
candidates. He probably looks upon them as good men of business, 
with long experience of parliamentary and Federal affairs, and he 
knows very well that if measures are passed of which for some rea¬ 
son or other he does not approve, he and his fellows can combine to 
reject them at the referendum. * * * There have been hitherto 

only two instances of a member willing to serve not being reelected. 

* * * 

The debates are carried on with much decorum. There is seldom 
a noisy sitting, even when the most important subjects are discussed. 
Interruptions are few, and scenes such as unhappily have of late 
been painfully frequent in our House of Commons do not exist. The 
sittings strike the spectator as being those of men of business, though 
the members are by no means devoid of eloquence. 

[From The Rise of the Swiss Republic, by W. D. McCracken.] 

Democracies have been justly reproached for the fact that their 
political offices are not always filled by men of recognized ability and 
unstained honor; that the best talent of the nation after a while yields 
the political field to adventurers. This is not the case in Switzerland 
under the purifying working of the referendum and the initiative. 
Nowhere in the world are government places occupied by men so well 
fitted for the work to be performed. 

[From Suggestions on Government, by S. E. Moffett.] 

The testimony of foreign observers to its (direct legislation) admir¬ 
able working in Switzerland is almost unanimous. If we had nothing 


120 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

but theory to guide us, we should infer that the right of appeal from 
a legislative body to the people would greatly diminish the intensity 
of party conflicts; that it would tend to keep legislators of ability in 
place regardless of their opinion on current issues; that it would 
promote sincerity among public men, prevent filibustering and log¬ 
rolling, check corruption, and make legislative debates businesslike 
instead of oratorical tournaments for the benefit of the reporters. 
Practical Swiss experience has shown us these results in actual 
operation. 

A SWISS patriot’s testimony. 

Karl Burkli, a well-known political economist and citizen of Zurich, 
Switzerland, writes to the editor of the Record: 

The smooth working of our Federal, cantonal, and municipal referendum is, as a 
matter of fact, a truth generally acknowledged throughout Switzerland. The 
initiative and referendum are now deeply rooted in the hearts of the Swiss people. 
There is no party, not even a single statesman, who dares openly oppose it in 
principle, and yet many of them cuss the new institution in the depths of their 
hearts. 

There are so man} 7 referenda the year through that I can not well specify. 
Suffice it to say that the Swiss people are about to decide, per referendum, whether 
there shall be or not a pure state bank, without any participation ot private capi¬ 
tal (shares), called Federal bank (bundesbank). As most of the cantons already 
have cantonal banks, the answer will be, of course, in the affirmative. And the 
century will not elapse before the Swiss people will have also decided on the 
nationalization of railroads (bundes-bahnen), and very probably, too, proportional 
representation. This is going ahead in half a dozen cantons (Berne, Basle, 
Zurich, Lucerne, St. Gall) just now, and six cantons (Tessin, Neuchatel, Geneva, 
Zug, Soleure, Fribourg) and the Federal city of Berne have already proportional 
representation. 

Our city or municipal referendum goes likewise very well. So, the town citi¬ 
zens of Berne voted this year (April), per referendum, for instituting propor¬ 
tional representation, and last year the town citizens of Zurich (now the largest 
city in Switzerland, about 130,000 to 150,000 inhabitants) voted for appropriation 
and management by the city of the tramways (streetcars). 

All these divers votings—Federal, cantonal, municipal—went on without riot, 
corruption, disturbance, or hindrance whatever, although great agitation. So 
all is well with us, and you may authoritatively say that there is no agitation for 
its repeal or difficulty in its working, whether in federation (bund) or in the can¬ 
tons or in the cities, as Zurich, Geneva, Basle, Berne, though these cities are full 
of foreign elements. Our Swiss political trinity—initiative, referendum, and pro¬ 
portional representation—is not only good and holy for hardworking Switzerland, 
but would be even better. I think, too, for the grand country North America. It 
would cure you thoroughly of your leprous representation, both Federal and 
State, and regenerate your misgovernments in large cities. 

Notice the variety of things which are being settled by direct legis¬ 
lation—the financial question in a Federal or national bank, local mat¬ 
ters in methods of government, and in street railways. It is applicable 
to every form of government, whether small or large. 


Appendix No. 21. 

[From The Arena, a monthly published in Boston, April, 1897.] 

THE DOORWAY OF REFORMS. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

Probably the American people devote more time and energy to 
politics and to government than do any other people in the world. 
There are more political clubs, discussions, meetings, agitations than 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


121 


in any other great country. We do this because of race, training- 
climate, and governmental conditions. Perhaps no other race is study, 
ing so eagerly the science of government. Perhaps no other race has 
grasped so fully the idea that there is a science of government and 
that its correct application is of vital importance to the governed. 

We are alert to seize new ideas and methods and quick and prac¬ 
tical in applying them. We have taken our civil-service reform from 
England, our secret ballot from Australia; we are eclectic, and therein 
is great strength. The masses of our people are reaching up to a 
better apprehension of correct principles of government, and desire 
more to understand them than happens elsewhere, though, as every¬ 
where, the masses have been usually dumb, and the voicing and 
framing of latent governmental aspirations and ideas have been left 
to the upper classes, who are trained to put their thoughts into words. 
But this is passing, and the line of dumb aspiration, of voiceless ideas 
and unexpressed interests, has in America been drawn to a lower 
plane in the social strata than in civilized countries in general. The 
working classes among us are learning how to express themselves, 
and they demand that their interests and aspirations be solidified 
into law. 

OUR MANIFEST DESTINY. 

This is a part of our manifest destiny. A century and a half ago 
we led the world in the statement and advocacy of democratic princi¬ 
ples. The world has followed our lead, till to-day the coronation 
words of the Czar of all the Russias ring empty, obsolete, mediaeval, 
an interesting survival, not a statement of a living truth. A century 
ago these words were alive, they meant something, they expressed a 
truth vital to the hearts of civilized men—the necessity of order at 
any price, even at the sacrifice of liberty; to-day, save in backward 
races and unpurged corners, they are dead. We have order, and 
shall have it, and can have liberty with it. The civilized world has 
accepted the democratic principles which we were the first on a large 
scale to state, advocate, and attempt to apply. It has accepted them 
in its heart of hearts, although it often hangs on to the mere shell of 
its old ideas. 

The American people have never knowingly approved dishonest 
principles or elected dishonest officials. We have often been deceived. 
We have often had to choose between evils. We have never know¬ 
ingly chosen the worst. We have never knowingly inaugurated or 
even continued a dishonest or unwise policy. The American people 
are sound at the core. 

UNEXPECTED AND POOR RESULTS. 

Yet these principles, so gloriously argued, so eloquently stated, so 
generally accepted, so pregnant with promise, have failed to fulfill all 
their promises. Toilfully and painfully we have been learning that 
a statement of principles is not enough; that the practical and cor¬ 
rect application of correct principles alone will produce beneficent 
results; that the application of these principles can not be delegated 
to other parties than those directly interested, without a dishonest 
and corrupt application. 

At first a crude application did produce beneficent results, and the 
American people turned their attention to conquering the continent, 
and later to the fight over slavery; now we are waking to the fact 


122 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

that if democracy has been applied in this country it is a failure. 
We are unable to accomplish results. Under present methods the 
will of the people is not enacted into law. Our municipal govern¬ 
ments are crude and corrupt. The title of alderman is a title of dis¬ 
honor. Jobbery pervades our city halls. Incapacity characterizes 
our municipal lawmakers. In cleanliness, health, and beauty in our 
cities, the actual results of good government, we are behind the cities 
of semicivilized Turkey and Russia. 

Our State legislatures attract attention more by what they fail to 
do than by what they do, by their squabbles for offices and spoils, 
and by their incompetence. Two members of the highest legislature 
in the land thus give their opinions of Congress. Senator Vilas, of 
Wisconsin, recently said: 

Partisanship and imbecility have again stricken Congress with paralysis. The 
bond bill, as it came from the House, was a mere sham and fraud, and deserved 
to be consigned to the hecatombs of folly’s progeny, where the financial deeds of 
Congress for many years seem to belong. I turn from it to the graft which the 
Finance Committee has sprouted on it. It was a bad stock budded on a worse 
scion. The best hope was that both would shrivel in the desert air of the Senate. 

Senator Smith, of New Jersey, said: 

About the best thing that could happen would be for the Senate and House to 
adjourn, because no business is being accomplished, and there apparently is no 
hope of any being accomplished. It is a fact that the great majority of people 
are disgusted with Congress, and the Senate in particular. 

But why repeat a thing you all know? If this is democracy, we 
want no more of it. Away with the lethal, degenerating thing! 

AMONG THE PEOPLE. 

What are the results among the people? The first result is that 
those who still cling with a blind but splendid loyalty to the noble 
principles of democracy, and who see that nothing can be accom¬ 
plished with our present open and public methods, turn to hidden 
methods, to the formation of secret societies whose alleged aim is the 
reformation of abuses. Such are often noble in principle and incep¬ 
tion , but they are perverted democracy. Their methods because secret 
are almost sure, in time, to become underhand and despicable. They 
fail to grasp the great underlying principle that true democracy is 
open and public in all its methods. Democracy aims to convince, 
not to coerce; to lead, not to drive; to unify a people, to harmonize 
and remove all discords, and not to create class or religious or eco¬ 
nomic divisions. 


DISGUST WITH GOVERNMENT. 

The second result of this perversion of democracy is disgust with 
government and all its affairs. The clean, honest citizen is afraid to 
touch it lest he, too, be defiled. I know of men, honest, honorable, 
capable, who have refused to vote for a quarter of a century. They 
say it is of no use. In some cities less than 30 per cent of the voters 
cast a ballot, and in twenty-four of the largest cities barely half of 
the voters vote. The stay-at-home vote increased in Pennsylvania 
from 70,000 in 1888 to 610,000 in 1895; in New York, from 75,000 to 
510,000; in Massachusetts, from 80,000 to 230,000; in Ohio, from 
40,000 to 180,000. In Georgia, at a recent election, only 9 per cent of 
the voters voted. These are startling figures. 


123 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

This numbing disbelief in popular government because of our 
method of application is the creeping paralysis of the Republic. It 
threatens to overthrow the principles of republican government, 
while still retaining its forms and names, by a subtle substitution of 
an oligarchy of officeholders and even of imperialism itself. Our best 
citizens do not attend to the science of government, the highest of all 
sciences, and so our worst attend to it. Our best citizens can accom¬ 
plish little or nothing under present methods, and so they fold their 
hands and do not try. 

The result is the centralization of power in a few hands. The 
mayors in our cities have to-day more power than they ever had. 
This is one-man power. The legislatures are assuming more power 
over large cities than ever before. John Fiske has said: 

Obviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to the very idea 
of a Federal Union. Without the town meeting or its equivalent in some form or 
other, the Federal Union would become, ipso facto, converted into a centralized 
imperial government. Should anything of this sort ever happen, then the time 
will have come when men may safely predict the break-up of the American polit¬ 
ical system by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity of interests in 
its parts. 

We have seen the Executive of the nation exert all the tremendous 
power of his great office to force the legislative body to repeal a law 
he wanted repealed, and he succeeded. Yet he is the man to execute 
and not to make the laws; at least, so the Constitution states. His 
acts have enlarged the prerogatives of the President and made him 
more of a dictator. His former Secretary of State, who recently occu¬ 
pied the highest foreign ambassadorship, has said that the American 
people need a strong hand to govern them, and that Cleveland is the 
man to do it. So low hath sunk a member of the party which once 
owned Jefferson and Jackson as its leaders! We see this centralizing 
tendency in the increased clamor for a larger army, a larger navy, a 
better-drilled militia, and in the building of armories and drill halls 
which are like bastiles and forts in their architecture. This rapid 
but subtle, silent, and often unnoticed advance toward imperialism 
is permitted by the disgust with the results of so-called democratic 
government. 

WHITHER? 

Whither are we drifting ? If the centralization goes on, there is 
but one end—despotism and government by corruption—a government 
more subtly tyrannical, more hard to uproot, more vile and despicable 
in action, more foul in results on man than the world has ever seen. 

THE END OF THE CENTURY. 

It may be the result of a superstition, it may be merely a coinci¬ 
dence, it may be that the ending of the old and the beginning of a new 
century give such an impetus to the imagination of the peoples of this 
world that an apparently new, vivifying force stirs the lifeblood of 
the nations; but it is a fact that the ending of the old and the begin¬ 
ning of a new century ever herald some great reform and change. It 
has been so in the past. Will the end of the nineteenth and the 
beginning of the twentieth century usher in the fuller and more com¬ 
plete application of the principles of democracy which roused the 
world a century ago, in the American revolution, and later, in the 
French revolution, sent the doctrine of the divine right of kings to 


124 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


the limbo of the past? Shall we cease prating of our admiration for 
democratic principles and get down to their practical application? 
As we led the world a century ago in the statement of these princi¬ 
ples, shall we again assume our hegemon} 7 in their practical applica¬ 
tion at the opening of this coming centur}^ ? 

THE PARTING OF WAYS. 

We have come to the dividing of ways. On the one side is the 
imperialism of monopoly, corrupting, degrading, foul, but tinseled and 
begemmed; her head is in the stars and shining with false lights, but 
her feet of clay and iron mixed trample in the blood of the children. 
On the other side is full and complete democracy, perhaps not so fair 
at first to the outward sight, but beautiful with the beauty of use and 
trust and manhood developed and developing. On the one side is 
government; on the other is self-government. On the one side are 
the rulers of the people; on the other are its chosen servants. The 
one is a pyramid upside down; its apex, on which it sways uneasily, 
is the autocrat or small group of autocrats who really rule. You 
may call them a president and cabinet, a committee from the rail¬ 
ways or from the monopolies, or what you will; they may not even 
have the badges of power, but if they really rule, they are the apex 
on which the whole pyramid rests. Uneasy and uncertain is that 
rest. A final catastrophe is sure. No matter how deftly the pyramid 
may be balanced, some day it will topple over and drag its false civi¬ 
lization into ruin. 

Can you expect reforms from this autocratic government? You may 
get economies in the methods of government, but you will not get 
real reforms which will benefit all the people. You may get the sem¬ 
blance, but you will not get the substance of reforms. 

The other is a pyramid placed solidly on its base, the whole people. 
It is firm and will resist the storms of centuries. Like an oak with 
widespreading roots, it is of slow growth, but when once a reform is 
gained it is always held. It may be slow work educating the people 
in various reforms, but when once it is done you have got, not the 
semblance, but the substance of reform. Its outward manifestations 
may vary in different parts of the country, but when you have the 
people back of it the reality will be there every time. 

Democracy is inevitable. Nothing can stop it. It is coming. 

REPRESENTATIVE V. DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 

Representative government is not democracy; it is a half-way 
house toward democracy. This country has passed beyond representa¬ 
tive government. Other countries may still need it, we do not. Its 
fruits prove that. What are its fruits? Rottenness. A prominent 
member of a former legislature, whose honored name you would at once 
recognize, once told me that he was morally sure that two-thirds of the 
members of that legislature had taken bribes, and that he thought that 
a majority of the remaining third would have taken them if they had 
had the chance. It is openly said of the farmers in another legislature 
that with a salary of $500 and one term in the legislature they pay off 
the mortgage on their farms. A member of a Michigan legislature 
told me that he saw so much corruption that he would not be a candi¬ 
date again, and his successor told him that he had made $15,000 out 
of his first term. Lobbyists have testified that they could give their 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


125 


employers a fairly accurate estimate beforehand of what it would 
cost to buy a majority of a legislature. This is due to two facts inher¬ 
ent in the representative system, and not in a truly democratic method: 

First. The interest of the representative often is and can easily be 
made directly opposed to the interest of the people for whom he makes 
laws. This would not and could not be true if the people voted on 
the laws directly. The people then would make laws in their own 
interests. 

Second. The corruption is concentrated under the representative 
system so that it is effective. Suppose a thousand electors elect one 
representative. Five dollars each would not buy a majority of them 
to vote for a law which was contrary to their own interests, yet much 
less than $5,000 might buy their representative to vote for the same 
law. If $5 each were offered to a thousand voters, some one would 
be sure to divulge the fact and there would be a public scandal defeat¬ 
ing the bribe givers. It is a thousand times easier to keep quiet the 
giving of a bribe to one representative. 

Third. Notice where the corruption comes from. Mayor Swift, of 
Chicago, said recently: 

Is it your men in the common walks of life that demand bribes and who receive 
bribes at the hands of legislative bodies or of the common council? No; it is your 
representative citizens, your capitalists, your business men. 

It is not the mass of the people who are corrupt and who are cor¬ 
rupting our representative system. It is the upper classes, the men 
of wealth and influence, the class from which our lawmakers are 
usually chosen. 

Corruption is inherent and inevitable in our representative system. 
No modification of that system can more than partially improve it. 
It will always be there till you take the final power away from the 
representative and leave the enacting of the laws in the hands of the 
people themselves. Make the representative a councillor, a law 
drafter, a law suggester, but not a law enactor. That power should 
reside in the people whenever they wish to exercise it. Until this 
change is made you will be like the widow who importuned the unjust 
judge till she got something of what was due to her; by persistence 
you may get some minor reforms, but not any great permanent reform. 

THE DOORWAY OF REFORMS. 

The doorway to complete and thorough reforms is the practical 
and complete application of democracy. That is the entrance not 
only to national, but also to State and municipal reforms. The 
machinery necessary is very simple. It is only putting in practice the 
principle of self-government. No community, no matter how small, 
no matter how large, should be governed by any law which they can 
not vote on directly without the intervention of any representative 
body, if that community wishes thus to vote. This is self-govern¬ 
ment. This is direct legislation through the initiative and the refer¬ 
endum. By the referendum no law—and this means a city ordinance 
as well as a State or national law—goes into effect under a reasonable 
time, varying of course with the size of the territory governed and the 
number of the voters in it. If during that time a reasonable minority 
of people—this percentage also should vary with the number of voters 
in the legislative district and should sink to 1 per cent or 2 per cent in 
the case of the nation and rise to 10 per cent or 15 per cent in the case 
of small localities—sign a petition to have a law referred to the peo- 


126 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

pie, it is held from operation till all the people vote on it. If a major- 
itj^favor, it becomes a law; if a majority oppose, it does not become 
a law. 

By the initiative, a reasonable minority of the people can propose 
a law, which after discussion in the legislative body and among the 
people is voted on by the people, a majority accepting or rejecting. 
The two together, initiative and referendum, constitute direct legis¬ 
lation, or the direct proposing and voting of laws by the people who 
are to be governed by them. By this method the final power is not 
delegated to a lawmaking body. The people may accept suggestions 
from their legislature; they may tacitly approve of the work of their 
legislature by not calling for the referendum on whatever is passed. 
But they can do it at any time. There is the gist of the whole matter— 
the ability at any time to do as they want. Having the power, they 
will rarely need to use it. At present they can not do it, no matter 
how much they may wish it. This is the very simple and effective 
machinery of democracy, the never giving up the final power to make 
and enact any laws for their own government. This is self-govern¬ 
ment as opposed to government. It can be applied to the government 
of a nation, or to the affairs of a village, or to the scattered member¬ 
ship of an association for some object; and to-day it is applied to all 
these purposes, not only in foreign countries, but also in a limited 
manner in this country, and applied with marked success. A study 
of the literature of the subject will substantiate this statement. 

NOT NEW OR UNTRIED. 

Direct legislation is not a new or an untried thing, but has its 
roots in the early forms of our Government, in the principles on which 
it was founded, in the practice of our constitution making, in the 
methods of the New England town meeting, in the very atmosphere 
which surrounds all our institutions. Study Switzerland, study the 
town meeting, study our trade unions and various other societies, even 
some of our church organizations, and in the light of experience you 
will say that we should not seek relief from the evils of our present 
system of applying democracy by going back to autocracy or impe¬ 
rialism, but by going forward from a now false and corrupt applica¬ 
tion of democracj^ to a fuller and more complete application of it. In 
that direction lies safetj^. 


RESULTS. 

Lack of space prevents more than an outlining of the principal 
results of direct legislation: 

First. It will be an outlet for our good citizenship, which, because 
it sees that it can not accomplish anything without soiling its hands, 
folds them and does nothing. But unorganized good citizenship at 
present can not accomplish anything. Our system does not permit it. 
Under direct legislation any citizen could start a petition for a law, and 
if he could interest a reasonable minority, he could bring it before 
the people for discussion and adoption or rejection. If a majority of 
the people thought it a good thing, it would be passed. And so our 
good citizenship could accomplish something; they could be real 
leaders. At present they can only write to the papers, or “raise a 
row” in some indignation meeting, or lobby, if they wish to try that; 
or they can get into a party caucus and be outmapeuvered and out- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


127 


voted. Direct legislation would bring out and develop the leadership 
of brains and patriotism so sadly lacking in our present public life. 
Look at the grade of our public men at present. There are no 
Websters, or Clays, or Calhouns, or Sumners, or Sewards among 
them. Why? Because our system needs scheming politicians to run 
it; the man of brains and of patriotism has but little chance to really 
lead the people. So our public life is filled with second-rate men. 
Direct legislation will bring back to public life the leadership of brains 
and of conscience, the true leaders of thought. All honest reformers 
are looking for this; hence they ought to advocate the system which 
makes it possible. Without such leadership, thorough reforms are 
impossible. Direct legislation is therefore the doorway of reforms. 

OUTLET FOR BAD CITIZENSHIP. 

Secondly. Direct legislation will be an outlet for our bad citizen¬ 
ship. It will allow it to formulate its demands, and that formulation 
will often relieve them of half of their danger; it will permit the free 
discussion of these demands and their decision, and thus they will be 
rendered completely harmless. Stifle them and you sit on the safety 
valve, and explosion follows; let the steam blow off and it will be 
harmless. Perhaps among these demands there may be some wheat 
which is well worth the winnowing. In this public unrest perhaps 
there are some real grievances which the mere making public will 
remedy. Thus direct legislation will save what is good and remedy 
what is evil in our bad citizenship. Half of the needed reforms con¬ 
sist of the redress of grievances. Thus, again, is direct legislation the 
doorway of reforms. 

AN EDUCATION. 

Thirdly. It is a great educational scheme. At present our political 
campaigns are very valuable educationally. They are likely worth 
all they cost. But they are the old undershot water wheel which 
used only about 5 per cent of the available power, while direct legis¬ 
lation is the improved turbine which utilizes nine-tenths of the 
power. IIow much of our present political discussion is concerned 
with the characters of the candidates, with mud slinging and abuse! 
How much with vainglorious praise of our party and detraction of 
the other party! How much of the party platforms really means any¬ 
thing? How ambiguous they are! How capable of being interpreted 
in one way in one section, and in directly the opposite in another 
section! How little of the discussion is really educational! Under 
direct legislation we should have a discussion of measures, not of 
men; of principles, not of personalties; of laws and methods, not of 
records. Where under the present system there is one part which 
is really educational, under direct legislation there would be ten 
parts. Hence it is a great educational scheme. Again, in this light, 
is it the doorway of reforms. 

THE WORDING OF THE LAW. 

Fourthly. Unless it suits the wishes of the party bosses, a reform 
can not even be heard in legislative halls. Under direct legislation 
you would only have to convince a reasonable minority that it was 
wise to bring before the whole people the reform measure. You 
would not have to wait the pleasure of party bosses and so modify 
S. Doc. 20 -41 


128 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

your plans that they would consent to give it a hearing. At present, 
when the people do rise in their might and insist on the passage of 
some good measure, the politicians usually do their best to defeat it 
by inefficient enforcement or by some little clause in the law which 
will make it inoperative. This has happened again and again with 
civil-service reform and the secret ballot. The politicians endeavor 
to defeat reforms by indirection. When prohibition was passed in 
Kansas, ex-Senator Ingalls said that all was lovely—the prohibition¬ 
ists had their law, the liquor men still had their saloons, and both 
were satisfied. This would be prevented under direct legislation, for 
those who favored a measure would have the drafting of the law to 
carry it into effect; or if not, they could propose amendments to make 
it effectual. While politicians control the wording of the law,, that 
wording will be in their interest and in the interest of the men who 
pay them; and they do not receive the major part of their revenue 
from the public. Render harmless their jrnwer over the phraseolgy of 
the law by permitting the people to word their own laws if they wish 
to, and at once a great stumbling block is lifted from the pathway of 
all reforms. Again is direct legislation seen to be the doorway of 
reforms. 

FEW AND UNDERSTANDABLE LAWS. 

Fifthly. Laws should be simple and short, so that “he who runs 
may read;” so that “the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err 
therein.” At present they are many and complex. In the “off” 
years, when only seven or eight legislatures sit, there is an output of 
but a few thousand laws; but in the “on” years, when the full legis¬ 
lative machine is grinding, there are turned out between ten and fif¬ 
teen thousand laws—Ossa piled on Pelion—good, bad, and‘useless 
laws, with a big majority of the last two kinds. In this vast mass of 
laws there are pitfalls for the unwary, ambuscades behind which 
crouch shyster lawyers (the beasts of prey of this more than tropic 
jungle), great fungoid growths on what might have been good timber, 
slime, loathsomeness, and deadly malaria. Woe to the reformer 
who tries to hew his way through this dense, tangled, unwholesome 
jungle! The stubborn growth springs up behind him almost as 
quickly as he can cut it down in front, and when he begins to see 
light ahead he is tripped up by some previous legal enactment that 
makes his attempts nugatory. 

The example of Switzerland is refreshing. There many of the Can¬ 
tons or States pass on an average but three or four laws a year, and 
these are short and simple. When the people vote on laws, they kill 
them unless they understand them. Hence those of our constitutions 
in whose enactment the referendum has been used are short and sim¬ 
ple. All truly great reforms are simple. It is becoming increasingly 
difficult to enact any such because they are stifled by other laws. 
Thus again we see that direct legislation prepares the way for all 
other reforms. 

UNENFORCED LAWS. 

Sixthly. Our system would be absolutely unendurable if all our laws 
were properly enforced. An unenforced law is a despised thing, hence 
the fitting reverence for 4aw is fading out of the popular mind. A 
reform that is enacted into an unenforced law is worse than useless. 
Make the laws shorter, simpler, and fewer and they will be the more 


129 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

easily enforced. A reform then enacted into law will be worth some¬ 
thing, but what is it worth when a New York legislator can openly 
say that he is in favor of the law but against its enforcement? Here 
again direct legislation is the avant-courier of reforms. 

Did space permit I might cite many other arguments. 

PERMANENT REFORMS. 

Lastly. No reform is permanent which does not have the people 
back of it. If you put the Ten Commandments from Sinai, supple¬ 
mented by the Sermon on the Mount, into a nation’s laws, they would 
be useless unless the people believed in them; if the people believe in 
them, they will be effective. Under direct legislation the people are 
back of every law that is made. The nation progresses as fast as the 
people are ready for progress, and no faster. Such growth is normal 
and healthy. - By direct legislation any reform that the people are 
ready for can be obtained, and no reform can be obtained till the peo¬ 
ple are ready for it. Thus again is direct legislation the doorway of 
reforms. 

Soon we shall pass out of the old into the new century. Soon, let 
us hope, shall we pass through this great primal reform, direct legis¬ 
lation or self-government, into other reforms. The signs of the times 
all point that way. 

Forward, forward let us range. 

Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. 

Dante put over the entrance to his hell: 

Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here. 

I would reverse this and say, “Take all hope when ye enter here,” 
till, in the words of another poet, 

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law. 


Appendix No. 22. 

[Supplement to fifteen or twenty Oregon papers, prepared for this report in fall of 1897, by 
W. S. McRen, of Milwaukee, Oreg., and others.] 

SUGGESTIONS AND OBJECTIONS TO DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

Citizens of the State and of the United States who are considering 
or may consider the proposal to add direct lawmaking to our legisla¬ 
tive system ought to answer, in their own minds, these questions: 

Have the advocates of the initiative and referendum any personal 
ends to gain? No one has doubted their patriotism—the worst accu¬ 
sation against them is that they are “cranks.” 

Is our present system entirely perfect? Is it even satisfactory and 
sufficient? 

Which do we get, the laws the people want, and need, or the laws 
of party policy after wearisome party strife? Does the State leg¬ 
islature, does Congress, does the city council waste any time or 
money? What does the legislature, Congress, or the city council 
accomplish compared to the time consumed and money appropriated? 
Is there such a thing as a political boss? Are there such things as 
heelers and strikers for the boss? 

S. Doc. 340-0 



130 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Are there such things as professional office seekers? Are legisla¬ 
tures bought? Are honest poor men usually elected to the United 
States Senate? Is, or is not, the United States Senate largely com¬ 
posed of men representing great moneyed interests? 

Are Members of Congress, in patriotism, purity of character, polit¬ 
ical morals and brain power, the cream of the people? or are they 
hack politicians, often failures at home in their own professions, and 
usually below the average in intelligence? 

Do the bosses of the two political parties secretly divide the offices 
before the conventions meet? Do you think it a mere accident that 
where a strong man is nominated on the Republican ticket it so often 
happens a weak man is nominated for the same office on the Demo¬ 
cratic ticket, and where a very popular Democrat is nominated that a 
ver} r unpopular Republican is named for the same office? You know 
this is often done in the election of a mayor, a county clerk, or a sher¬ 
iff. Do you think it is never done in the election of a legislature or 
a Congress? 

The most notable recent example is Boss Platt’s aid to Tammany 
in the capture of Greater New York—Tammany from Tweed to 
Croker notoriously standing for boodle and corruption against the 
interests of the toiler and capitalist alike. 

“Competition is impossible when combination is possible,” is as 
true of politics for office as of any other business. Political bosses 
are too wise and prudent in their business to take any chances that 
can be avoided. 

Do you think new parties and new bosses will continue unselfishly 
devoted to the people any longer than it takes them to become old 
parties and old bosses? 

Are elections, national, State, or municipal, struggles for principle, 
or contests between “bosses?” 

Do the bosses control the offices and distribute the “fat?” 

Are the offices distributed to the fittest persons, or are they distrib¬ 
uted as rewards for past political services, and payment for political 
services to come? 

Do Members of Congress, of the State legislature, or the city coun¬ 
cil, vote with a single eye to the patriotic wisdom of a measure, or 
do they regard their standing with the “party,” the “boss,” the 
“push,” their obligations for the “campaign fund,” their “swaps” 
and “ trades” with fellow members? “You tickle me, and I’ll tickle 
you.” 

Could the boss or the machine buj^ the general army of voters as 
easily as a compact, small body, such as a legislature? 

Could the boss or the machine control the people against a simple, 
clear-cut proposition manifestly for the people’s benefit? 

Is this a country of popular self-government, or is it not? 

If the people are not fit to govern themselves by direct vote at the 
polls, are they fit to vote at all? 

Does the past history of legislatures, city councils, or Congress 
show in them any divine gift or superior wisdom that entitles them to 
govern the people, as the “people’s representatives,” rather than that 
the people should govern themselves directly? 

Is, or is it not true, that the legislatures, city councils, or Congress 
are composed largely of scheming and selfish hack politicians, the 
mere tools of masters? 

Would not the boss and the hack politician be shorn of their power 
to a very great extent by the mere existence of direct legislative 
power, and direct veto power in the hands of the people at large? 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


13.X 

Would they not be obliged to please the people at large, rather 
than the “striker,” the “heeler,” the “pap” seeker, the “push,” the 
contributors to the campaign “fund,” and the horde of parasites that 
now infest, feed upon, direct, and corrupt American politics? 

We do not suggest the abolition of any legislature or house of leg- 
silature. We believe in them for quick action for ordinary legisla¬ 
tion, and as a system of checks and balances, but we ask some check 
also upon them. 

We do not suggest an immediate application to national affairs. 

We do not believe the initiative and the referendum is an experi¬ 
ment, but still, for extra precaution, we may treat it as an experiment, 
and begin with it in State and local government. 

It is not novel as a principle. The words “initiative and referen¬ 
dum ” are merely new names to designate the application of an old 
principle to wider uses. For example, every State, from time to time, 
submits to the voters at the polls some question to answer. It has 
been done in Oregon. That is the only way the constitution of Ore¬ 
gon can be changed. But the people want the power to call for a sub¬ 
mission, and compel it, not to receive it only as a favor from the 
legislatures. Neither the initiative nor the referendum would, in the 
nature of things, be used for the settlement of ordinary questions, 
but onty for great general principles—and being thus settled, the 
policy of the country would be at rest for a considerable period; not, 
as now, in a state of continual ferment, destructive of the maximum 
prosperity to any but the political bosses, whose meat is found in fre¬ 
quent and bitter elections. 

The mere labor involved in calling for an expression of the people’s 
will as a preliminary forbids the use of this method of legislation, 
except where a great principle is at stake and deep patriotic feelings 
aroused. 

And lastly, we ask, are not socialism and other manifestations of 
popular discontent growing daily, be the times “good” or “hard?” 

It is not the discontent of the beggar and the “hobo.” There is no 
danger that the pauper class will become so overmastering as to over¬ 
come at the polls the united interest of the thrifty class. The dis¬ 
content is with the inequalities and follies of legislation under party 
and corporate influences. 

The professional politicians, who realty hold the people at the polls 
in chains to-day, throw into the teeth of reformers the seeming 
truth— 

“This is a government of the people, b}^ the people, for the peo¬ 
ple,” and when the people want your initiative and referendum they 
will have it. 

It is time now for the people, poor, busy, tired, and unorganized, to 
say, “We do want it, and we will have it.” 

By the initiative, we propose that a reasonable number of the 
voters, say 10 per cent in Oregon, shall have power by petition to 
propose any law or amendment to the constitution and require its 
submission to the people at the next general election. 

By the optional referendum we propose that a reasonable number 
of the voters, say 5 per cent in Oregon, shall have power by petition, 
filed within ninety days after the close of the legislative session, to 
compel the submission to the people at the next general election of 
any law passed by that legislature. 

It is intended that the submission of any proposed law to a vote of 
the people shall be in the power of a reasonable minority of the voters 
as well as in the legislative assembly. 


132 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

No law submitted to the people shall take effect unless it is approved 
by a majority of those voting thereon. 

It is not proposed to abolish any legislature, but to create another 
lawmaking body, of which every voter shall be a member by right of 
birth and citizenship, and which shall have supreme power to make 
or repeal any law. 

The objections most frequenty offered to our adoption of this sys¬ 
tem are about as follows, with some of the answers and reasons in its 
favor: 

Objection 1. Our country is too big. 

Answer. The idea seems to be that because our voters are so many, 
are scattered over so much land and so far from Washington, there¬ 
fore our votes can not be cast and counted for the election of a law. 
Yet all men in the United States who choose to vote, as well as many 
women, do have their votes counted for Members of Congress or 
Presidential electors three times every four years, not to speak of the 
number of times they are counted for State and county officers. The 
same officers who count these votes can, at the same election, count 
the votes of the same voters who choose to mark their ballots for or 
against any proposed law. 

For a practical example, though the voters of California have no 
power to compel the submission to them of any proposed law, the leg¬ 
islature of the State sometimes submits important questions to a vote 
of the citizens. At the Presidential election of 1892 the following 
nine proposals were so submitted to the voters of California: (The 
vote is given in thousands only.) 

1. Should the United States Senators be elected by the people? 

Voting yes, 188,000; voting no, 13,000. The vote was only to get 

the opinion of the people, as advice to Congress. 

2. Shall the proposed law take effect, as passed by the legislature, 
for the building at State expense of a general ferry and passenger 
depot at San Francisco by the State board of harbor commissioners, 
at a cost not exceeding $600,000, bonds to be issued for the amount? 

Voting yes, 91,000; voting no, 90,000. 

3. Should the constitution be amended to require an educational 
qualification of voters? 

Voting yes, 151,000; voting no, 41,000. This question was sub¬ 
mitted merely to get the opinion of the voters for the advice of the 
State legislature. 

4. Shall the proposed law take effect, as passed by the legislature, 
providing for the issue by the State of twenty-year gold bonds, to pay 
its debt of $2,500,000? 

Voting no, 86,000; voting yes, 80,000. This bill was submitted in 
all its details. 

5. Shall senate constitutional amendment No. 10 be adopted, limit¬ 
ing sessions of the legislature to one hundred days’ pa} 7 , and prohib¬ 
iting the introduction of any bill after the first sixty days, except by 
consent of two-thirds of the members? 

Voting yes, 156,000; voting no, 36,000. 

6. Shall assembly constitutional amendment No. 7 be adopted, 
prohibiting the creation of debt by any county, city, town, township, 
or school district without reference of the question to a vote of the 
citizens and approved by two-thirds of those voting thereon? 

•Voting yes, 109,000; voting no, 60,000. 

7. Shall senate constitutional amendment No. 11 be adopted, allow¬ 
ing higher salaries to certain State officers? 


133 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Voting no, 129,000; voting yes, 44,000. 

8. Shall assembly constitutional amendment Ho. 5 be adopted, 
authorizing certain State officers to allow deficiency expenditures of 
State money in addition to the appropriations by the legislature? 

Voting no, 88,000; voting yes, 69,000. 

9. Shall senate constitutional amendment No. 14 be adopted, allow¬ 
ing the voters of any city of more than 3,500 inhabitants to make its 
charter, provided that the charter so framed shall be approved at the 
ballot box by a majority of the citizens voting thereon? 

Voting yes, 115,000; voting no, 42,000. 

The amendments were described on the ballot only by the senate 
or house number, without any statement or explanation whatever of 
their purpose or effect. Therefore it required a very considerable 
degree of education and study for a voter to express his opinion on 
all these nine propositions. 

The total vote on Presidential electors was 269,000, while the vote 
on these proposals varied from 160,000 to 201,000. The questions were 
all voted on and the votes counted without any complaint of extra 
labor, expense, or delay in voting or counting, and it does not take 
longer to communicate with Washington from the remotest precinct 
in the United States than it does with Sacramento from many of the 
precincts of California. 

New inventions in government that were not possible even in a 
small county a hundred years ago have been made practical and nec¬ 
essary in great countries now by the public school, the press, the postal 
service, telegraph, and railroad, and by the growth of private corpo¬ 
rations. 

The vote by ballot has made it as easy to receive and count the votes 
of 20,000,000 men as of 20,000, requiring only proportionately more 
polling places and officers. In nine Presidential elections out of ten 
the result is known all over the country within forty-eight hours after 
the polls close. 

The voters can and do select the names of their candidates from 
among twelve to two hundred names that are printed on the ballot. 
Surety they can mark their vote on the same ballot for or against 
proposed laws. 

Objection 2. The votes to elect a law can be bought as easily as the 
votes to elect a candidate or a party ticket. 

Answer. This is certainty a mistake. A successful candidate very 
seldom receives so many as one-half the votes cast, while proposed 
laws are nearly always elected or defeated by large majorities. 

At the 1892 election in California, if the Republicans had bought 
from 130 to 350 more votes, Harrison would have carried the State, 
so small was Cleveland’s plurality in the total vote of 269,000. But to 
change the result for the nine questions voted on at the same election 
it would have been necessary to buy from 1,000 up to 88,000 votes. 

The purchase by the Republicans in New York in 1884 of less than 
1,000 votes would have elected Blaine and defeated Cleveland. The 
purchase and transfer from the successful candidates to the defeated 
ticket of not more than one-tenth of the votes cast will always elect 
the latter by immense pluralities, amounting in many cases to actual 
majorities. 

The money to buy votes for or against a proposed law can never be 
got so easily nor spent so safety as for a candidate or a party ticket. 

Very few professional vote buyers claim that more than one-tenth 
of the voters can be bought, at a total expense of about $10 a vote, 


134 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

but tlie party that gets all or most of these always elects its candidate. 
But the change of that number on a vote for and against a proposed 
law would very seldom change the result. The Swiss have had only 
one close vote on a proposed national law in twenty-three years. 

Nearly always we have three or more men running for every office, 
so that a man may be elected by barely more than one-third of those 
voting, but there are only two ways to vote on a proposed law, for or 
against; therefore it must always be elected or defeated by more than 
one-half the votes cast. 

At the 1894 election in Oregon for governor, the Republican received 
41,000 votes, Populist, 27,000, Democrat, 17,000, and the Prohibition 
2,000; a total vote of 87,000. If the Populists had bought 10 per cent 
of the vote from the Republicans, the Populist would have been elected 
by a plurality of more than 3,000, and yet have had 8,000 less than 
half the votes cast. 

Suppose at the election a proposal had been submitted to have the 
State print and furnish all schoolbooks at cost. Twenty-seven thou¬ 
sand Populists, 10,000 Democrats, 2,000 Prohibitionists, and at least 
15,000 Republicans could have been safely counted on to vote yes—a 
clear majority of 21,000. The American Book Company was the only 
concern that would have been directly interested against the change, 
and if that corporation had bought one-tenth of all the votes to vote 
against the law (and no more are supposed to be for sale), it would 
still have been elected by a majority of 3,600, and the company would 
have been out $87,000. 

Now, suppose the parties had been represented in each house in pro¬ 
portion to their vote at the ballot box, the State schoolbook party 
would have had 38 representatives and 19 senators, the book trust 22 
representatives and 11 senators. The book trust would have needed 
only 4 senators or 8 representatives to prevent any change in the law, 
because a majority of all the members elected to each house is neces¬ 
sary to pass a bill. Four senators out of 30 or 8 representatives out 
of 60 who can be bought is not a large percentage. Which would 
have been easier, cheaper, and safer for the American Book Company, 
with $87,000 to spend, to buy either 4 senators or 8 representatives, 
or to purchase 8,700 votes at the ballot box? And yet this might be 
done in the legislature and a very large majority of the members be 
honest men. Under which plan is money more likely to govern the 
people by making their laws? 

Objection 3. The people are too ignorant to vote on the laws. 

Answer. The man who makes this objection is always speaking of 
the other people, not of himself. Experience proves that it is not true 
of those who will vote. As a rule only those who understand the ques¬ 
tion will vote, while those who are ignorant will always vote no if they 
vote at all. It is hardly possible that a voter can remain so ignorant 
of the good and bad features of a proposed law as he must necessarily 
be of the good and bad traits of a man he never sees, and in very many 
cases never hears of until after the nominations are made. Even if 
the voter does personally know his party’s local candidate to be hon¬ 
est, wise, and patriotically unselfish before the election, he can not 
possibly know that the man will successfully resist the thousand and 
one flatteries, blandishments, and temptations that will be thrown 
around him before his term of office expires. This being true as to 
the voter’s ignorance of one man, with how much greater force must 
it apply to his ignorance of the hundreds of candidates nominated for 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


135 


legislative offices? But the proposed law is always printed and it is 
the voter’s own fault if he does not know what it is and its probable 
effect. 

It is true, as said by the Portland Oregonian, August 16, 1897, 
(though the paper does not advocate the addition to our lawmaking 
system of the initiative and referendum), commenting on the small 
vote on recent constitutional proposals in Texas and Tennessee, that 
those “who will not inform themselves on the merits of the desired 
changes either neglect to vote at all or vote ‘no,’ to be on the safe 
side.” 

In Zurich, Switzerland, all voters are required by law to vote, and 
thousands of blank ballots are cast at every election, only because 
some voters will not take the trouble to inform themselves. 

It is not possible that the citizens can ever vote more ignorantly on 
any proposed law than the Senators and Congressmen did who voted 
for the 10 per cent discriminating clause in the Dingley bill, or the 
President who signed it, none of them knowing it was there. 

Objection 4. The people are not interested and will not come out to 
vote, but if they do they will follow their party leaders. 

Answer. In support of this is offered the experience of Texas and 
Tennessee and other special elections held to decide a single question. 
But all such votes should be had at regular elections, not only to save 
time and get a large vote, but to avoid useless expense. California’s 
experience in 1892 shows that the people are interested, and this was 
most abundantly confirmed at the Presidential election in 1896 by 
large votes on constitutional amendments in New York, South Dakota, 
Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, Idaho, California, and Minnesota. 
(For details of the vote and amendments see Direct Legislation Record, 
March, 1897, published by Eltweed Pomeroy, at Newark, N. J.) 

New York proved last fall that the people will not follow party lead¬ 
ers in electing laws. At the Presidential election a proposed amend¬ 
ment to the constitution of New York was submitted. It had been 
approved by two consecutive Republican legislatures and strongly 
recommended by a Republican board of forestry commissioners. 
McKinley carried the State by 250,000 majority over Bryan, but this 
Republican amendment was beaten by nearly 400,000 majority, while 
nearly 300,000 who voted for the officials did not vote on the amend¬ 
ment. When a proposed law is submitted to the voters and a large 
majority do not vote, that fact alone is sufficient proof that a change 
is not wanted by the people. Such a vote means only that the people 
think the election or defeat of the law a matter of very little impor¬ 
tance. 

Objection 5. The people do not want the power to make law by the 
initiative and referendum. 

Answer. In 1894 one-sixth of the voters of Oregon signed a petition 
to the legislative assembly, asking for a constitutional convention to 
submit to the people a new constitution, including the initiative and 
referendum. The vote in California on the constitutional amend¬ 
ment granting a limited and very incomplete referendum on charters 
to cities of 3,500 inhabitants or more was 115,000 in favor, to 42,000 
against, nearly 3 to 1. In Minnesota, at the Presidential election of 
1896, a similar amendment was adopted by 107,000 to 58,000, nearly 
2 to 1. If the failure of some citizens to vote on proposed laws is a 
good reason for not allowing the power to any, then it is just as good 
a reason for not allowing the people to elect officials, because it is very 


136 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


seldom that more than two-thirds of the voters go to the polls at any 
election. The above facts show that a great many citizens want this 
power. 

Let a constitutional amendment for this purpose be submitted to 
the people and see whether the majority want the new system. 

Objection 6. It will be too expensive—will cost too much for elec¬ 
tions and printing. 

Answer. There will be no perceptible cost for elections because 
special elections will very seldom be called to vote on proposed changes. 
Laws will be elected or defeated at the regular elections held every 
two years or oftener for the election of officials. It would be an unu¬ 
sual thing to have more than nine proposals submitted atone election. 
Zurich, Switzerland, has averaged only seven a year for more than 
twenty years. But even if there was twice that number, the printing 
and delivery to every citizen of a pamphlet copy of the proposed laws 
can not exceed 10 cents per voter—$10,000 for a referendum vote in 
Oregon. Our legislature squanders more than twice that su m at every 
session for the one item of clerk hire. For a national referendum it 
would be only $1,500,000, a mere trifle compared with the millions 
Congress wastes every year. 

The chattel-slavery question was settled by four years of war that 
cost the people of the North and South infinite suffering—helpless 
widows and orphans as well as strong men—crippled and slaughtered 
more than a million of our bravest and best, and besides all this has 
already cost us in debts, interest, and well-deserved pensions at least 
$10,000,000,000—more than enough to have paid the market value of 
all the slaves and still pay all expenses of one national special refer¬ 
endum election every year for a thousand years. 

Objection 7. If the people have the initiative and referendum, great 
and dangerous changes are likely to be made by the voters enacting 
their hasty impulses into law. 

Answer. “ All experience hath shown that mankind are more dis¬ 
posed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by 
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. ” (Declaration of 
Independence.) 

Revolution by force of arms was the only method the plain people 
of any nation ever had for making great changes in government until 
the Swiss adopted direct lawmaking by the voters, through the ini¬ 
tiative and referendum. Not one “hasty impulse” has been enacted 
into law by the voters of Switzerland. 

No large deliberative body has ever knowingly made a great change 
in the law except after careful and long-continued discussion. Under 
the proposed system of direct legislation, all the voters form one vast 
deliberative assembly. In slight degree this is true of our citizens 
now as to some constitutional amendments, and no instance can be 
found in American history where the people of any State have approved 
any constitutional amendment unjustly attacking the liberties of the 
citizen or the rights of property. Many good amendments have been 
rejected on the first submission which were adopted when submitted 
the second or third time, after years of discussion and education. 

Consider the action of the Swiss on Government ownership of rail¬ 
ways and a Government national bank. A proposal by the Govern¬ 
ment in 1891 to buy the Central Railway, one of the most important 
lines, was rejected by 156,000 majority. 

October 1, 1896, after five years more of study and discussion, the 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


137 


question of buying all the railroads was submitted by an initiative 
petition and carried by 50,000 majority in a vote of nearly 400,000. 

In 1896 the Swiss Congress passed a bill creating a Government 
national bank. In its tendency to centralize power in the National 
Government the bill is like the demands of the Populists in the United 
States, though in details there is great difference. The referendum 
was demanded by 83,000 voters (only 30,000 were required), and the 
proposal was defeated by 50,000 majority in a vote of nearly 440,000. 
This does not look like enacting the hasty impulses, either of the peo¬ 
ple, the Congress, or the politicians. 

It is not possible that all our voters could give us so many hasty 
and ill-advised laws as we now get from Congress and the State legis¬ 
latures. 

Objection 8. It will be too slow and will take too long to make or 
change a law. 

Answer. We think it will be fast enough, because it will be as fast 
as the majority of the voters want the law changed. Swiss experience 
proves that an important law can be made in much less time than is 
possible with us under our present system. 

With the referendum, when Congress or a State legislature enacts 
an unjust or foolish law, the voters of the nation or State, as the case 
may be, can repeal it at the ballot box before it ever goes into operation. 

Contrast the time and work necessary under the two systems in get¬ 
ting an important proposal decided on its merits by the lawmaking 
body. 

Under our representative system, you must first organize a national 
political party, and run candidates for all the offices. 

Second. Convince a majority of the people, not only that your 
demand is just and Avise, but that it is the most important of all ques¬ 
tions before the people. 

Third. Select 356 good men to run for Congress, out of about 1,500 
in the ne\v party who would like the nomination, and then elect a 
majority. 

Fourth. In the same conventions select at least 4,500 candidates for 
the various legislatures, 45 for governors, and elect a majority in 
every State where a United States Senator is to be elected. You Avill 
also haA^e to select not less than 15,000 candidates for other State and 
county salaried officers, and Avill find sometimes that part of your leg¬ 
islative ticket has been traded for a sheriff or county clerk in the 
interest of greed. 

Fifth. Do it all over again tAvo years later, and thus get control of 
the United States Senate, .and this time be sure you elect the Presi¬ 
dent. If you were fairly successful before, your difficulties will be 
multiplied a hundredfold noAv by the bountiful crop of office seekers 
from which to select your good men and true. If you fail in getting 
a majority either in the Senate or the House or do not elect your Presi¬ 
dent, your work is in vain for that campaign. 

Sixth. Keep your party true to the issue on which it started. 

When you have done all this your proposed law Avill be considered 
on its merits by the President and Congress, if it is not talked to 
death by the minority in the Senate. If it is enacted, your labors 
may be nearly over. 

All this and more was done in the creation of the Republican party, 
with the Avar in addition, to settle the chattel-slavery question. 

Under the proposed system of direct legislation the path is not so 
long. 


138 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Suppose a quarter of a million petitioners are required to propose a 
national law by the initiative. One-half the number of men you must 
now nominate for Congress and the legislatures, using their leisure 
hours for a year only, can get the required signers, if your proposed 
reform has reached the stage of growth where it would be possible to 
organize a political party. The petition is then filed with the Presi¬ 
dent, and at the next regular election the question is decided on its 
merits bj the highest lawmaking power—all the voters at the ballot 
box—and their vote will be the supreme law. 

All this need not take two years, nor cost so much as the various 
conventions to nominate officers in a single campaign under the pres¬ 
ent system. 

Its possibilities were recognized by the Republican national com¬ 
mittee in its address in 1857, in which it declared that if the questions 
of extending and continuing chattel slavery in the United States could 
be submitted to a vote of the people, nineteen-twentieths of the voters 
of the free States and a large majority in the slave States would vote 
“No.” 

Under direct legislation that issue might have been settled by the 
ballot in one day, instead of by the bullet in four years. 

Objection 9. Our laws would be made, especially in appropriations 
of public money, b}^ the ignorant and corruptible class who own no 
property and pay no taxes. 

Answer. It is admitted that our corruptible class does not exceed 
one-tenth of the voters. Laws could not be made by them, because 
a proposed law or constitutional amendment, when submitted to the 
people, is almost always elected or defeated by a majority much 
greater than one-tenth of those voting. 

The influence of this class to-day is almost supreme, because the 
vast majority of the voters who are not for sale are divided by prin¬ 
ciple or party prejudice into two large and almost equal bodies at 
every election. Therefore the party that succeeds in buying the 
greater part of these salable voters elects its ticket by a handsome 
plurality. 

Our laws are not made by the men who own property and pay their 
honest share of the direct taxes. It is well known that the majority 
of the men who make the laws are elected by the purchase of this cor¬ 
ruptible one-tenth of the voters, and the buying is done with money 
furnished by the class of men who make this objection—by those who 
own much property and pay as little taxes as possible. 

The class of men who own no property or only their homes or the 
farms on which they work are never accused of buying votes, either 
at the ballot box or in the legislative bodies. 

Our city councils in the great cities are notoriously for sale, and are 
bought by the wealthy men and corporations, while Congress and the 
legislatures have the same reputation. It is reported to have cost 
$500,000 last winter to buy the infamous Yerkes Chicago street-railway 
bill through the Illinois legislature, but that body refused to submit 
the question to the voters of Chicago as to whether the law should 
take effect or not. 

Neither the men who bought nor the men who sold that legislature 
were ignorant or without property, but they knew very well that it 
would be impossible to get money enough to buy that law from the 
people of Chicago at the ballot box, though seven-tenths of the people 
of Chicago own no property and payno direct taxes. If elections can 
be bought it is inevitable that they will be bought by those having 


139 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

money to buy with and an end to gain, and it is a notorious fact now 
that our elections are controlled by wealthy individuals and corpora¬ 
tions in conjunction with the “bosses,” politically the most vicious of 
the people, acting on the corruptible, poorest, and most ignorant one- 
tenth of the voters. Farmers and wage-workers have never been 
accused of buying a bill through Congress or a legislature, nor of 
buying a franchise or an ordinance from a city council. 

Objection 10. The people can not vote on the details of complicated 
matters, like the tariff and money question. 

Answer. It will seldom be necessary, though it has been done, as, 
for instance, our vote on State constitutions and the recent vote by 
the Swiss on Government ownership of railroads, the proposal includ¬ 
ing many of the details for their purchase; also the Swiss Government 
national-bank bill, which contained 56 sections, and the vote on the 
bonding law in California. Neither is it necessary that laws should 
be so hard to understand. The people will reject such proposals 
until they are made simple, plain, and brief. However, the vote will 
usually be on principles rather than on details. 

For example, Senator Pettigrew’s bill now before Congress, provid¬ 
ing for an advisory vote of the people next year, is a bare statement 
of the questions: 

“Shall the Constitution of the United States be amended to pro¬ 
vide for the election of United States Senators by the people?” 

“Shall Congress enact a law providing for the free and unlimited 
coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1?” 

On the tariff the question might be, “Shall the tariff be levied for 
protection with incidental revenue?” 

All that Congress or a legislature needs to know is that the law 
must embody a certain principle. If the work is not well done, or 
there is a steal, then the referendum may be demanded on the sec¬ 
tions where tlie fraud is placed. In the Dingley bill, for instance, on 
the sugar schedule. Even at the worst, the average voter is much 
more likely to come to a wise and honest conclusion on a dozen laws 
in all their details, after from three months’ to a year’s study and dis¬ 
cussion of the question at home among his friends, than the average 
legislator or Member of Congress can be on from 500 to 1,000 bills 
during the hubbub and dissipation of a session at the capital among 
strangers whose interest or prejudice it is to buy or fool him. 

Objection 11. Anybody will sign a petition to submit a law. There¬ 
fore the agitators will keep the people voting all the time. 

Answer. Our experience in Oregon with the petition for a consti¬ 
tutional convention proves that a man will not sign a petition to sub¬ 
mit a law as freely as he will one to have John Smith appointed 
postmaster or deputy sheriff. In the latter case he is doing a personal 
favor for a neighbor and it costs him nothing, while a refusal may 
make an enemy. But when a petition to submit a law is offered, 
there is no question of personal favor. Signing it may subject him 
to ridicule as a crank, but he does not make an enemy by refusing, 
because it is a question of principle, on which his right to his own 
opinion is freely admitted. 

Therefore, in order to get the signatures of 5 per cent for the local 
referendum, or 10 per cent for the local initiative, or a smaller per¬ 
centage but much larger number for a national petition, there must 
be a very large number who want the question submitted. 

In addition, circulation of such a petition will require an organiza¬ 
tion for the purpose., much labor, and some money. As a general rule, 


140 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

no man or class expects great personal benefit or injury above what 
may fall to the other men or classes by the proposed law. Therefore 
only the most public-spirited, persistent, and intelligent of the people 
will circulate the petition. These men will not incur the necessary 
ridicule, labor, expense, and trouble, unless it is a principle that 
seems to them of the greatest importance. 

SOME REASONS WHY THE ADVOCATES OF DIRECT LEGISLATION BELIEVE THE INI¬ 
TIATIVE AND OPTIONAL REFERENDUM SHOULD BE ADDED TO OUR SYSTEM OF 
LAWMAKING FOR CITIES, COUNTIES, AND STATES, AND EVENTUALLY FOR THE 
NATION. 

First. Because our representative system of lawmaking by party 
majorities in Congress and a partisan President lias proved a failure 
for the peaceful and prompt settlement of great questions, and this 
in even greater degree, if that be possible, than the failure of State 
legislatures and city councils on less important measures. The evi¬ 
dence: When our Government was organized there were five great 
issues before the people—equal rights for women, chattel slavery, 
tariff, Government paper money against bank currency, and the land 
question. 

The women themselves have made some progress toward equal 
rights for which party politicians are in no way responsible. Chattel 
slavery was settled by war. The tariff and currency issues are with 
us yet, and the land question hardly touched, notwithstanding poli¬ 
ticians of all parties have held office and drawn fat salaries for one 
hundred and ten years in their alleged efforts to settle these questions 
right. 

Second. The proposed system is a peaceful, fair, speedy, and sure 
method of settling all political, moral, and business questions, in so 
far as they relate to government, one at a time and each one sepa¬ 
rately and alone, without reference to or complication with any other 
issue. 

Third. By direct legislation it is easy to obtain a vote of all the 
citizens interested for or against any proposal affecting public morals 
or public business, and therefore it is impossible that a minority 
should even think of civil war or revolution to obtain or enforce any 
law against the will of a known and counted majority. 

Fourth. Class laws are impossible under direct legislation, because 
no one class has a majority of all the voters and therefore no law can 
be made in the interest of any class at the expense of the people. 

Fifth. By this system the people can make any law independent of 
and against the opposition of any or all their elected officers, and at 
the same time it is impossible for any or all their elected officials to 
make any law against the will of the majority of the citizens. Leg¬ 
islators thus become the servants of the people in fact as well as in 
theory. 

Sixth. The initiative and referendum is more truly preservative of 
law and order than any other system of government, because no new 
law changing existing institutions can ever be made suddenly or bj^ 
stealth, but by being agitated and discussed for years and perhaps 
rejected twice or three times, the proposal, if right and wise in prin¬ 
ciple, is perfected in form while the people and business interests 
have ample time to adjust themselves to the change. 

Seventh. Direct legislation will make our Congressmen, Senators, 
and all legislators independent of the threats and favors of corpora¬ 
tions. It will deprive monopoly of power to maintain itself by bull- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


141 


dozing officials and defeating reform leaders for reelection. The influ¬ 
ence of corporations over lawmakers comes much less from direct 
bribery than from their well-known power to defeat the reelection of 
any legislator who seems to be especially dangerous to their interests. 

For instance: Senator N. P. Hill, of Colorado, made a gallant and 
what promised to be a winning fight for Government ownership of the 
telegraph, and it was matter of common knowledge in the campaign 
of 1884, in Colorado, that the Western Union would spend any amount 
of money necessary to defeat the Senator’s reelection. In that cam¬ 
paign and the legislature of 1885 it was reported and commonly 
believed that the company spent in the neighborhood of $200,000. 
Senator Hill was defeated and Senator Henry M. Teller elected in his 
place. Ex-Postmaster-General Wanamaker is another victim per¬ 
manently retired to private life for urging Government ownership of 
telegraphs and reduction of railroad rates for carrying the mails. 
Corporations would not do such things if we had direct legislation, 
because the power of such men as Hill and Wanamaker to proceed 
with these reforms by the initiative would be at least equal to the 
power of a United States Senator under the present system. 

Eighth. The initiative particularly is the most conservative and 
educational constitutional power ever introduced in government, in 
this, that it is possible for the agitators to have all the friends of their 
proposal counted as soon as they can get a reasonable number to sign 
their petition. This prevents even a thought of revolution or vio¬ 
lence. For example, the socialists were anxious to amend the Swiss 
constitution to the effect that it is the duty of government to furnish 
work at good wages to any citizen on demand. No more extreme 
measure is conceivable. Of 110 members of the Swiss Congress, only 
2 voted for the submission of the amendment. The socialists then 
circulated an initiative petition, obtained 52,000 signers, and the 
amendment was submitted to the people, defeated by more than 4 to 
1 in a vote of 380,000, and the radicals were satisfied. Switzerland 
alone of all the civilized governments is the only one having no fear 
of anarchists or anarchism within its territory. 

Ninth. The initiative takes the place of new political parties seek¬ 
ing all the officers as a means of getting a new idea enacted into law. 
A proposal may thus be submitted and adopted or rejected by the 
people without one of its supporters ever running for any office or 
being branded as an office seeker, a professional politician, or a polit¬ 
ical boss. It is not necessary to put any man in or out of office to get 
•any law enacted or repealed. Direct legislation tends to continue 
good men in office so long as they are willing to serve, regardless of 
their opinion for or against any particular law. In twenty years the 
Swiss voters have rejected 6 out of 7 constitutional amendments, and 
17 out of 30 laws approved by their Congress, on which th£ referendum 
was ordered either by Congress or petition. They have settled the 
tariff question in favor of protection; granted the national Govern¬ 
ment a monopoly of the issue of paper money, and power to create a 
national bank; rejected a proposal by their Congress to buy one rail¬ 
road and five years later approved an initiative proposal to buy all 
the railroads; rejected the Government currency and banking bill; 
but notwithstanding all these differences between the people and the 
Congress, they have not in that twenty years refused reelection to so 
many of their 110 Congressmen as our one State of California, which 
Las only 11 members, including Senators, and probably not to so many 


142 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

as the Western Union alone has defeated in the United States in the 
same time. 

Tenth. It makes the power and influence of the individual voter 
over lawmaking depend on his intelligence rather than on his wealth, 
and fixes upon him a definite personal responsibility for every law. 

Eleventh. The constant study of proposed laws required under this 
system greatly increases the intelligence of the people on all political 
and economic questions. 

Twelfth. The direct power of the people over appropriations of 
public money and the salaries of public officers in great degree de¬ 
stroys the power of the party boss. Direct legislation tends to pre¬ 
serve the rights of the minority and destroy that bitter partisanship 
which is the curse of American politics. Even though a majority 
through its speaker and his committees should smother any important 
measure in the legislature, it would not be greatly delayed thereby, 
because its friends could readily bring it before the people by the 
initiative. For this reason its tendency is to prevent partisan organi¬ 
zation of legislative bodies. The riots which have been so common 
in State legislatures, and the complete failure of legislative govern¬ 
ment in Oregon last winter are the natural and necessary fruits of 
government of the people by political parties, of the parties by the 
majority faction, and of the factions by the bosses. Such things are 
impossible under direct legislation. 

Thirteenth. Direct legislation tends to prevent jobs and steals in 
legislative bodies because of the long and dangerous road over which 
the jobber must carry and guard his load. He must carry his job 
through the legislature, prevent the legislature from referring his job 
to the people, prevent one-twentieth of the voters from signing a ref¬ 
erendum petition within ninety days after the close of the legisla¬ 
ture, and then, though his law is in force he is always and forever in 
danger that one-tenth of the voters will sign an initiative petition 
demanding its repeal, and if so he must have a majority at the ballot 
box. Even though his job should be approved by the people, another 
initiative petition may be filed after a reasonable time, say two or 
three years, again demanding its repeal, and all his trouble at the 
ballot box must be gone over again. Such a system as this would 
make buying laws one of the most risky of all investments, and the 
tendency would be for capitalists to put very little money into the 
business either of buying the election or defeat of members of city 
councils, legislators, or Congress, or of buying laws after the members 
were elected. 

Fourteenth. Direct legislation destroys office seeking as a profession 
for two reasons: The direct control of the people over official salaries 
from constable to President, tends constantly to reduce them to a 
figure at whiqh office holding is no more profitable than private em¬ 
ployment. The people having power at all times to veto any job 
or steal, it follows that officials have neither favors to give nor fran¬ 
chises to sell. Therefore there is little or no competition for official 
positions and the same men are often reelected, term after term, as 
long as they wish to serve. 

Do you believe it is worth trying? If so, will you not request and 
urge your representatives in the legislature to pass a general law, to 
take effect in any county when approved by the voters thereof, allow¬ 
ing one-tenth of the voters of the county to file an initiative petition 
with the county clerk at least sixty days before any election, demand¬ 
ing the submission to the voters of any question of increasing or 


143 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

decreasing the salary of any or all county officials, allowing the county 
court also to submit any county matter to the voters for approval or 
rejection; requiring the county court to make an annual appropriation 
bill, and allowing one-tenth of the voters of the county, by petition, 
to demand the submission to the voters of the question of rejecting 
or amending any item of said annual estimate for county appropria¬ 
tions, and providing that every such proposal as may be approved by 
a majority of those voting thereon shall take effect. Such questions 
may be submitted at the regular annual elections for the election of 
school directors as well as at the general elections, and at very small 
expense. In this way we can test the advantages of direct legislation 
in local matters before the time comes to vote on a constitutional 
amendment providing for the system on State laws. 

It is possible for the voters who wish for a direct vote on laws, to 
obtain that power very quickly, if they unite in demanding that their 
respective political conventions shall pledge all their candidates to 
submit to the people as soon as possible the necessary laws and con¬ 
stitutional amendments to provide for the initiative and optional ref¬ 
erendum, local, State, and national; and also demanding that Congress 
and the President shall provide by law for the prompt submission to 
the people, at regular Congressional elections, of any proposed law or 
constitutional amendment that shall be presented to them with a peti¬ 
tion therefor signed by 250,000 or more legal voters, such signatures to 
be verified as now required in United States land-office proceedings, 
and that Congress and the President shall enact or reject such pro¬ 
posed measure according as the majority of the citizens voting thereon 
shall be for or against the same. 

For a hundred years and more the people have contended one against - 
another in political parties whose platforms and alleged principles 
have been so cunningly intermixed by politicians that we could choose 
only the least of two or more evils. 

Even in 1896 the citizen who believed in protective tariff and free 
coinage of gold and silver, if he voted for silver must vote for a can¬ 
didate who was a free trader, or if he voted for protection he must 
vote for a candidate who was for the gold standard, while he who 
believed in the gold standard and free trade was jn no better fix—one 
principle at least must be sacrificed. 

Have we not been beaten with stripes enough to make us hold all 
other principles in the background, while we unite to get the power 
in our hands as voters to compel a submission to us of each separate 
question? Will 3^011 do this? 


Appendix No. 23 . 

OBJECTIONS. 

[Taken by permission from the manuscripts of a work on Government in preparation by Prof. 

Frank Parsons.] 

Objections to direct legislation are made by several classes of per¬ 
sons : Those who misconceive its nature and workings; those who t hink 
that proportional representation will answer alone, without the refer¬ 
endum; those who think the referendum will interfere with the dig¬ 
nity and usefulness of the legislature; those whose personal schemes 
will be upset by the referendum; those who distrust the people and 
dislike popular government of any kind; those who don’t know what 
S. X Do«. 36-43 



144 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


tlie referendum means; those who object to change on the general 
principle that they are pretty comfortable and don’t want anything 
better than their fathers had—sort of disrespectful, you know, to 
improve on their methods. 

1. The first class object merely because they honestly misconceive 
the nature and workings of the referendum. They imagine that the 
legislature of a State would go on passing six or eight hundred laws 
a year and the people would have to vote on them all, and so it would 
cost an enormous amount of money and time. But we have seen that 
the great mass of laws is local, and should be left to the municipality, 
and if they were would not average one a year to a locality; and that 
the very existence of the referendum would remove the motive and 
opportunity which produces the greater portion of the laws which 
remain after subtracting the locals, so that the people would not have 
to vote more than once or twice a year and decide five or six ques¬ 
tions annually. After the change was fully made, this would be the 
case even under the obligatory referendum, and during the transi¬ 
tion the optional referendum could be used, so that the amount of 
voting done by the people need not be heavy at any time. Of course 
it will cost some time and effort to introduce the referendum—every 
great improvement costs something at the start—but, compared to its 
benefits, its cost will be very slight, and after its introduction the 
argument of economy is all in its favor. All this is clear in reason, 
and has been proved in the histoiy of Switzerland. 

2. The second class of objectors tell us that all we need to do is to 
elect better representatives—proportional representation and care in 
the selection of candidates will give us a good government without 
direct legislation. It is true that much may be done along these lines, 
but they are not in themselves sufficient. We have already shown 
that representatives can not really represent their sovereign, even 
with proportional representation and careful selection. Self-govern¬ 
ment can never be complete without direct legislation. Neither will 
the educational, simplifying, and purifying effect of the referendum 
be attained with anything like the same ease and rapidity in any other 
way. We believe in the measures proposed by these persons, but the 
referendum is needed also. We are not willing to take a couple of 
spokes in place of a complete wheel. 

3. The third class of objectors consists chiefly of honest legislators 
and their friends, who think that the dignity of legislatures would 
depart with the advent of the referendum. We may remark, at the 
first, that if a measure is for the public good, the dignity of a legisla¬ 
ture has no excuse for standing in the way; it must yield if it conflicts 
with a just and beneficial movement. But, in the second place, it is 
perfectly clear that legislative dignity and usefulness and honor will 
not suffer, but be exalted, by the change. 

The dignity of a delegate to a constitutional convention is greater 
than that of a member of the legislature, yet all of the decisions of the 
convention are subject to approval by the people. The dignity and 
honor of legislators in Switzerland is greater since the introduction of 
the referendum, because a nobler class of men go into politics. The 
referendum takes nothing from the power of the legislature but the 
power to keep the people from having the laws they want—nothing 
but the power to do wrong. The people will still desire the aid and 
advice of men of legal learning in the framing of their laws. They 
will only decide if they suit when they are framed. They wilj. revere 
their legislative lights more than they do now, because tU©y will live 


145 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

in a purer atmosphere, and be farther removed from suspicion of self- 
interest, and be more likely to be men of high ability and character 
on the average than now. In another way the referendum will help 
the legislature; for when a law is passed that the people do not want, 
or a law is not passed that they do want, instead of their having to 
rise and turn out the legislators in order to obtain their will—instead 
of that, they can leave the legislators quietly in their seats, and turn 
down the law they object to, or propose the one they desire. 

The referendum ought to commend itself to honest legislators be¬ 
cause it will do more than anything else to lift their profession out of 
the mire and free it from scandal, and because it is in line with the 
duty they owe to their sovereign. As Hon. Thomas McEwan told the 
New Jersey legislature in committee of the whole, January 29, 1895: 

It is only going back to first principles; all the government we have comes from 
it. We representatives are here only because the people believe we will do what 
they wish; that is why they sent us here. We are merely agents, bound in honor 
to do what our principals want done. It is our duty first to carry out their wishes 
as well as we can, and. second, to recognize the fact that we may err, and to pro¬ 
vide, therefore, a simple way in which the people may tell us we have done* so. 
Sometimes in the best of legislatures laws are passed that are unsatisfactory to the 
people, and there ought to be an easy remedy in such a case, to enable the real sov¬ 
ereign to say that the work of his agents does not suit him. That simple remedy 
is the referendum. 

4. Another class of objectors is concerned, not so much with the 
dignity of the legislature as with its usefulness. “ What is the use 
of the legislature,” they ask, “if the people are to make the laws?” 
One would think a person of ordinary common sense would not need 
to ask this question, yet it is asked time and time again by members of 
legislatures before whom the referendum amendment is advocated. 
The referendum leaves summary measures for health, peace, and 
safety in the care of the legislature, as at present, and also leaves 

them full powers of-in every other direction, subject only to 

revision by the people. The legislature becomes the emergency ruler 
and the universal adviser, the most important advisory body in the 
Commonwealth. Is that being of no use? You might as well say, 
“Of what use is a constitutional convention if the people are going 
to vote on the provisions it recommends ? ” or, ‘ * Of what use is the 
architect if you are going to determine whether or no the plans he 
makes shall be carried out?” These objectors sometimes put their 
question thus, “Why not accept the work of the representatives as 
final?” For two reasons: First, because representatives are not 
rulers, but agents, whose plans should always be subject to the prin¬ 
cipal’s orders; second, because those who are called representatives 
are really very often misrepresentatives, and the work they do is not 
in accord with the people’s will, as is shown by the frequent reverses 
they meet in their candidacy for reelection and by the disapproval of 
a considerable portion of their work under the referendum in Switz¬ 
erland. Even when the legislator does his best to represent the peo¬ 
ple he may not succeed, because of the difference in his reasonings 
or iffterests and prejudices, and even if he succeeds, the fact can not 
be known except through an expression of opinion by the people. 

5. The fifth class of objectors consists of politicians, monopolists,, 
lobbyists, and others who realize that their power of personal aggran¬ 
dizement and underground scheming would have to move out when the: 
referendum moved in. The motives of this class are not very fragrant,, 
but it is at bottom the most rational of all the classes we are consider¬ 
ing, for there is no doubt of the correctness of the idea on which their 

S. Doe. 340-r^lG 



146 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


opposition is based. Of course they do not say much about the real 
foundation of their objection. They do not say, “We are making a 
good thing out of the present system of legislation, and we don’t want 
to let the people in; we don’t want so many partners on the ground 
floor.” Instead of such a frank avowal, they adopt the errors and 
sophistries of preceding classes, and ring the changes on “hasty legis¬ 
lation,” “foreign idea,” “too expensive,” adding perhaps that the 
words “initiative and referendum” are pedantic and un-American, 
which may be truth, but has no more to do with the nature of direct 
legislation and the advisability of adopting it than a man’s name has 
to do with his character and the wisdom of employing him to clear out 
your stable or build your house. 

They have even been known to say to the advocates of the refer¬ 
endum, “You propose, then, that 5 per cent of the voters shall over¬ 
rule the will of the majority? ” Such was the question of the chairman 
of the Senate judiciary committee, February 12, 1895. Did he really 
think that was what the referendum would do, or was he trying to 
“bluff” the witnesses, a game which could only work in case of their 
sublime ignorance, and the equally colossal incapacity of the listening 
legislators, who were to be influenced by the chairman’s question. 
In either case, if we have legislators who can ask or be influenced by 
such questions as the above, after having the amendment carefully 
read to them and knowing that the only right given to 5 per cent of 
the voters is the right to petition that a matter may be submitted to 
the people for the very purpose that the will of the majority may rule, 
instead of the will of the minority, as is possible when such a vote is 
not taken—if we have such legislators, it is surely a powerful reason 
for some change that shall take the right of final decision away from 
such men. 

Again, these gentlemen say, “Many laws are too complicated for 
the people to understand; it takes a lawyer to comprehend them.” 

Exactly; and that is the kind of laws we want to stop. What right 
has a court or policeman to arrest and punish me for violating a law I 
can’t understand even if I read it and study it? Have I to get a lawyer 
to explain the 13,000 odd statutes to me every year? It wouldn’t pro¬ 
tect me if I did, for the lawyers don’t know what the laws mean a 
good deal of the time, and are continually wrangling over them. The 
legislators that passed them don’t know what they mean, but have 
to ask the Supreme Court; and even the judges have a good deal 
of trouble to find out the meaning, and frequently disagree among 
themselves about it. It’s these complicated laws which people can’t 
understand that we are going to get rid of (for one thing) with the 
referendum. 

The great stand-by of the more intelligent of these fifthites is the 
assertion that the referendum will be unconstitutional because it is 
not a republican form of government. If so, every State in the Union 
except Delaware has violated the Federal Constitution by adopting 
and amending its State constitution through the referendum, and there 
is only one valid State constitution in the land, the rest being void 
because made in violation of the Federal law. Suppose the people of 
Massachusetts should elect a legislature on pledges that they would 
submit every act to the polls? Would it not be right that the pledge 
should be kept? And if it were, would Massachusetts cease, in any 
substantial sense, to have a republican form of government? And if 
pot, what is the difference between electing representatives on such 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 147 

pledges and enacting a law to the same effect? No difference, except 
that the law would be much less clumsy and more effective. 

If the Federal judges should decide that the Constitution excludes 
direct legislation, we should have to amend the Constitution of the 
United States; that is all. But the word “republican” in the Con¬ 
stitution of a country which from the beginning has recognized and 
used direct legislation in its towns and cities, and in making and 
amending its constitutions, can not reasonably be construed to exclude 
direct legislation. If it had been used with such intention in the 
Constitution, the patriots of New England would have risen in stormy 
objection, and the opponents of every constitutional change since the 
Union was formed would have raised the bar of the Federal Consti¬ 
tution against the action of these States. But no such objection was 
ever heard of. The truth is that the word was used by the framers 
of the great Constitution in order to shut the doo ragainst the mo¬ 
narchical tendencies of the tories and aristocrats, at that time quite 
numerous in the country. The Federalist, No. 48, sixth subhead, says: 

To guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government: 
In a confederacy founded on republican principles, and composed of republican 
members, the superintending government ought clearly to possess authority to 
defend the system against aristocratic or monarchical innovators. 

There you have it, clear as the noonday sun, and the reason of the 
law is the law. 

But there is more. In the fourth paragraph of No. 39, of the Fed¬ 
eralist, Madison says: 

We may define a republic to be a government which derives all its powers 
directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by 
persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good 
behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great 
body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of 
it. It is sufficient for such a government that the persons administering it be 
appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people. 

The italics are Madison’s. Note the clear line he draws between what 
is essential and what is sufficient. A government by representatives 
elected by the people he says is sufficient, but not essential. A repub¬ 
lic may be governed directly or by representation. The essential 
element is that the government shall be derived from the great body 
of the society. If, as I think I have shown, our present government 
is not derived from the great body of society, and under present con¬ 
ditions can only hope to be so derived through direct legislation, then 
direct legislation is in reality needed to secure to us the essential ele¬ 
ment of republican government, as defined by the great creators and 
expounders of the Constitution; and instead of its being in violation 
of the Federal Constitution, the adoption of it is requisite to fulfill 
the guaranty it gives of republican government. In substance and 
spirit that guaranty is broken now—the referendum is one of the 
remedies, and it is the duty of the Federal Government to assist the 
States in adopting it, or some other adequate remedy, if another can 
be found. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Taylor: 

Were I to assign to this term [the word republic ] a precise and definite idea, I 
would say, purely and simply it means a government by its citizens in mass, act¬ 
ing directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority; and 
that every other government is more or less republican, in proportion as it has in 
its composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of its citizens. 

The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the 


148 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism. * * * If, then, 
the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of 
its republicanism—and I confess I know no other measure—it must be agreed 
that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to be expected; 
in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents than 
their rights and their interests require. 

The difficulty about the meaning of “republic” arose from the fact 
that Webster defines it as “a state in which the sovereign power is 
exercised by representatives elected by the people. ” That is a repub¬ 
lic, but it is not the only thing that is a republic. The Century Dic¬ 
tionary says: 

Republic. A commonwealth in which the executive power is vested in a person 
or persons chosen directly or indirectly by the body of citizens entitled to vote. 

It is no part of the definition that the lawmaking power should be 
done by representatives, but only that the law should be executed by 
representatives, which indeed is a physical necessity in every govern¬ 
ment of the people. 

Under the referendum the executive and judicial functions will 
both be exercised by “persons chosen,” and the larger part of the 
work of framing laws will also be so performed. The people will still 
avail themselves of the learning, but not of the selfishness of the law¬ 
yers. Only the proposing, approving, and vetoing power will be 
transferred to the people directly instead of through the long-drawn, 
clumsy contrivance of electing men pledged to make or repeal a law. 
The administration of the law will still be performed wholly by repre¬ 
sentatives. 

The Standard Dictionary, latest of all, says: 

Republic, A state in which the sovereignty resides in the people and the admin¬ 
istration is lodged in officers elected by and representing the people, * * * 
sometimes military, as in Sparta and the earliest Roman Republic, sometimes a 
well-nigh pure democracy, as in the first French Republic, or as in Switzerland, 
with its referendum. 

There it is, right out of the Standard Dictionary; and the usage of 
English-speaking peoples fully justifies the definition. For the Greek 
democracies, where the people made the laws and even sat en masse 
to exercise the judicial function, are everywhere spoken of as repub¬ 
lics. Webster’s Dictionary itself speaks of them as republics. And 
Switzerland, the land of the referendum, is known the world over as 
the “model Republic.” 

I have dwelt upon this objection, not because it seems to me to be 
anything but nonsense on its face, but because timid or adverse leg¬ 
islators are apt to catch at any chance to make a proposed amendment 
appear unconstitutional, and pose as defenders of the sovereign law 
instead of defenders of the will of the sovereign people. I will merely 
add that the referendum amendment has been submitted to the 
attorney-general of New Jersey for his opinion, and he reported to 
the legislature: “ I am of opinion that the constitution of New Jersey 
may be altered by the people of the State in the manner provided 
therein”—that is, by the referendum. 

Another mistake these creators of difficulty and attorneys of fallacy 
are fond of urging upon us is the idea that Switzerland is the natural 
home of pure and peaceful democracy, and specially adapted to the 
referendum, wherefore its success over there proves nothing in respect 
to what it would do in America. The facts are that democracy is not 
ancient in Switzerland, except in a few of its small forest cantons. 
Aristocracy, not democracy, was the rule until lately in nine-tenths 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


149 


of what is now Switzerland. AYhen the French took possession of the 
country in 1798, three-fourths of the male adults had no vote. Half 
of its present area became a part of Switzerland only in this century, 
belonging formerly to the surrounding monarchies; and of old Switzer¬ 
land, some of the cantons were tributary to others, and most of them 
were burgomaster oligarchies. The Swiss are separated by four lan¬ 
guages, and by the tremendous natural difficulties of communication 
offered by the Alps; by the still greater resistance to harmony and 
cohesion occasioned by intense religious differences; and by the tradi¬ 
tions and habits of narrow provinces, but recently united into a 
federation. 

As to peace, the history of Switzerland down to the middle of this 
century is one of the bloodiest on record. The truth is that the ref¬ 
erendum is in successful use to a greater extent in the United States 
now than it was in Switzerland when her statesmen concluded to use 
it to clear away the abuses from which their country was suffering, 
and that all the conditions of success are better here than they were in 
Switzerland, except that industrial monopoly is more massive and 
more powerful here than it ever was among the Alps, and will offer a 
mightier resistance to any reform that will place the government in the 
people’s hands—an additional reason for earnestly pushing the move¬ 
ment, since this insidious resistance will grow in strength with every 
year. 

It is sometimes said that the referendum can not overcome fraud 
and partisanship, for the power of appointment to thousands of lucra¬ 
tive offices will still remain in the hands of politicians and representa¬ 
tives. We have not claimed that direct legislation would of itself 
overcome all fraud and partisanship, but only legislative fraud and 
partisanship. Administrative abuses would remain until the people 
adopted a proper civil service, which is the next reform to be spoken 
of, and the attainment of which would be greatly facilitated by the 
referendum, for nine-tenths of the people are strongly in favor of 
conducting public affairs on sound business principles. 

* The referendum, of course, would not enable the people to execute 
the law in person. But abuse of administration is much more easily 
checked than corrupt legislation. You can tell what a man does much 
better than what he thinks. To discover the secret motive of a legis¬ 
lator is a far harder task than to watch the actions of a mayor or gov¬ 
ernor. In this important distinction lies a most vital political princi¬ 
ple, of which the referendum is the full expression. The law will 
have to be administered by judges, police, and other agents, whether 
legislation be direct or indirect. But the referendum will rid the 
country of legislative abuses and give the people an easy path to the 
destroying of administrative abuses. 

6. In the sixth class come those timid souls who distrust democracy 
anyway, have no faith in popular government, regard it as dangerous 
to property, and likely to result in unjust, hasty, revolutionary meas¬ 
ures, and would like, with Carlyle, to hear the people cry, “ O my 
superiors! my heroes! come and rule me as thou seest best! compel 
me to do thy sovereign will,” provided the}^ were recognized as among 
the heroes. Carlyle in all his spiritual relations missed these two 
great truths: First, mankind has discovered that no man or class of 
men can be trusted to govern others according to their own sweet will, 
or even to decide what the people’s interests are; for prejudice and 
self-interest and narrow knowledge make it impossible for anyone 
but the people themselves to give a correct decision on that point; 


150 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


even the people may not always judge rightly, but if they have reached 
a reasonable degree of development, they’ll come much nearer to the 
truth for themselves than anyone else can be trusted to come for 
them. Second, the true ideal is not a society in which the mass of the 
people are incapacitated for self-control, but a society in which every 
citizen is capable of self-government; wise enough and good enough 
to be worthy of a voice in the management of the social partnership. 

We do want government by our heroes, but we also want govern¬ 
ment by all for all, and the only way to combine the two is to make 
all men heroes. It was for that ultimately that the world dethroned 
its monarchs and gave the scepter to the mob. After humanity has 
so far developed that democracy does not involve an irretrievable loss 
of progressive power, then the only way to make the mob completely 
worthy of sovereignty is to place the burden upon them and let the 
responsibility mold them into fitness for the work. The people will 
learn how to govern themselves much faster by doing it than by 
watching the politicians do it—just as a boy will learn how to skate 
or to play the cornet far better by skating or playing himself than by 
looking at someone else perform. 

So far as hasty legislation is concerned, the experience of Switzer¬ 
land is that the referendum has proved a drag on legislation. Fewer 
laws have been passed than would have been passed without it. 

Some of these objectors, not to direct legislation merely but to the 
sovereignty of the people, say that direct legislation is “a new trick 
to get wisdom out of foolishness.” Well, you can get it out of fool¬ 
ishness sooner than out of corruption. But it will not come out of 
foolishness. The average American citizen is quite equal in sense to 
the average legislator, is much more progressive, and is infinitely 
superior in morality. He does not know so much of legal forms as the 
legislator, and he won’t refuse the guidance of the legislator in that 
respect, but when a law is formulated he can tell whether it will suit 
him or not a good deal better than the legislator can, even if the latter 
is perfectly honest. 

If the masses of people are a condensation of foolishness, it is curb 
ous that the greatest legislators all over the Union should spontane¬ 
ously and unquestioningly have intrusted them with the manufacture 
and amendment of the fundamental laws of States—the constitutions. 
And if the people can be trusted with the settlement of the great 
principles of government, as experience has shown that they can be, 
surely they can be trusted to determine the by-laws. 

Moreover, the people do continually act upon the by-laws in town 
meetings, city votes, and the election of candidates on party platforms. 
It will not be so difficult to vote on each issue separately as to decide 
about three platforms, with many issues in each, plus the personali¬ 
ties of several candidates. It requires more intelligence to arrive at 
a clear judgment on a lengthy platform than on propositions submit¬ 
ted singly. Direct legislation will simply enable the people actually 
to accomplish, in an easy, inexpensive, scientific way, what they are 
and in this country always have been endeavoring to accomplish in a 
very rough, expensive, and ineffective way. 

7. The seventh class consists of fossils, who object because they have 
an aversion to change; it is against their constitution and by-laws. 
They are not uncomfortable, and see no use in fussing about the gov¬ 
ernment; ‘ 1 things are getting better, let ’em alone.” They never 
would have got any better if they had been let alone, and the less they 
are let alone the faster they’ll get better. These conservatives, poor 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


151 


unfledged birdlets, afraid to trust their wings out of view of the nest, 
talk about the referendum and other needed reforms just as the Chi¬ 
nese talk about the introduction of a railroad. “The locomotive is a 
noisy monster. It screeches and keeps people awake. The railroad 
will overturn our methods of transportation and destroy the dignity 
of our carts and palanquins. The manners of the train men are bad, 
and traveling in the cars makes many persons ill. Sometimes persons 
are killed by passing trains and property rights are disturbed by 
railroads. It is true that they carry freight and passengers more 
quickly and cheaply than our methods can, and people would get what 
they want when they want it more nearly than now; but that is nothing 
compared to the noise and trouble of change. ” It is almost impossible 
to convince these chronic rebels against progress, because it is not a 
matter of reason with them, but of feeling. Logic is a thing they have 
little acquaintance with or congeniality for if it threatens their ease or 
impinges upon their mental, moral, or physical laziness especially. 

8. The eighth class of objectors consists of those who do not know 
what the referendum means, and who therefore oppose it on general 
principles, or rather on the general principle which, expressed or 
implied, lies at the bottom of the so-called reasoning of a considerable 
number of animals in human form; the principle, namely, that what 
they don’t know about isn’t worth knowing about. The orthodox 
method of these antiquities is to refuse to listen to any discussion of 
the referendum, and if by accident an opportunity occurs to astonish 
the caverns they bear upon their shoulders with a faint glimmering 
of an idea concerning the value of the institution, the standard “argu¬ 
ment” they make against it is, it is a foreign notion. The fact is, as 
we have seen, that the referendum has been practiced in America 
from the beginning. But if it were a foreign idea, that would not 
prove it a false one. I never heard that the multiplication table or 
the golden rule originated in America. They seem to be foreign ideas, 
but they are pretty good ones just the same. And even the steam 
engine is not indigenous to the soil, although we find it quite useful 
and entirely worthy of adoption. 

Thus all objections utterly fail, and the mighty array of positive 
argument is left without a breach. To pass them in brief review: 

The referendum will abolish monopoly in lawmaking, make plutoc¬ 
racy impossible, establish a real government by the voters, open the 
way to new reforms, bar the path of fraud, rout the lobby, weaken the 
corrupting power of wealth and monopoly, keep the representative to 
his duty, rebuke partisanship, make gerrymandering useless, and a 
deadlock impossible, discourage favoritism, extravagance, and legisla¬ 
tive theft, lower taxation, cut down exorbitant salaries, and in every 
way conduce to an economical administration of public affairs, decen¬ 
tralize power, simplify elections and the law, stop the killing or shelv¬ 
ing of bills in committees, and the passage or introduction of black¬ 
mailing acts, save much of the time now wasted in party disputes, 
personal politics, and angry debate, favor stability and careful legis¬ 
lation, disclose the strength of malcontents, and afford a safety valve 
to discontent, elevate the press, educate the people intellectually and 
emotionally, develop their reason, sense, dignity, and patriotism, make 
the public welfare hinge directly on the morality and intelligence of 
the masses, and bring the best men to the front as their leaders. 

Experience, reason, and the drift of public sentiment combine to 
emphasize the value and importance of the referendum, and after all 
it is simply the putting in practice of the American idea of the sover- 


152 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


eignty of the people. The Federal Constitution begins: “We, the 
people, do ordain and establish.” The first clause of Jefferson’s for¬ 
mula for democracy is, “The people to be the only source of legisla¬ 
tion.” Napoleon’s eagle vision caught the truth when he said: “Free 
nations have never allowed the direct exercise of their sovereign 
power to be taken from them. This new invention of the representa¬ 
tive system destroys the essential base of a republican commonwealth.” 
May the time soon come when we shall make good our loss, and the 
budding flower of liberty shall bloom in full perfection. 


Appendix No. 24. 

[From the American Nonconformist, published at Indianapolis, Ind., of June 3, 1897.] 

FORESHADOWINGS OF DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

Note. —Dr. Charles Borgeaud, of Paris, has written a book entitled, Adoption 
and Amendment of Constitutions, which was awarded the Rossi prize by the fac¬ 
ulty of law of the University of Paris, France. It has been translated, and to it 
I am indebted for much material in this article. It is a valuable book, well worth 
the study of scholar and statesman. Quotations in this article, unless expressly 
stated otherwise, are from Dr. Borgeaud's books. 

No great and truly successful movement is rooted only in the pres¬ 
ent. To be permanent, it must extend back into the past. Thinkers 
centuries ago must have seen its principles and believed in them. 
There must have been some attempts for it. It must have had a his¬ 
tory, beginning small, but ever growing larger and stronger, till its 
culmination when circumstances are favorable, when the mind of the 
people is educated toward it and when it has the right leaders. 

Believers in direct legislation through the initiative and referendum 
think that it is such a movement that its principles have been seen 
and believed in centuries ago; that attempts have been made to put 
those principles into practice; that it has grown both in the mind of 
the people and in the thoughts of the world’s thinkers; that it began 
small and feeble, but through many vicissitudes, many defeats, which 
were really victories, many seemingly backward steps, it has ever been 
growing larger and stronger; that with the growing impotence and 
corruption of legislative bodies the circumstances are becoming more 
and more favorable for its complete adoption; that with the wider 
diffusion of education and intelligence the people are becoming more 
ready and anxious for it; that in the agitation for it the right leaders 
are slowly coming to the surface; that, all these lines of thought and 
action converging, the movement is rapidly approaching its culmina¬ 
tion as a clear and complete system of government and that govern¬ 
ment purely democratic. This article simply attempts to give its fore¬ 
shadowings, its rootings in the past, its small, imperfect, and weak 
beginnings. 

IN ENGLAND. 

The initiative of representative bodies originated in England. At the begin¬ 
ning, as we know, the lords and commons had only the right of petition. Under 
the Tudors this right was transformed into that of the right of the initiative. 
Since then these petitions have had the character of laws, and the royal power, 
formerly the sole seat of legislative authority, is now displaced in this field by 
Parliament, 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 153 

One of the earliest foresliadowings of direct legislation in English 
history is thus described by Dr. Borgeaud: 

At the culminating point of the Puritan revolution, when Cromwell, swept on 
by the democratic movement, is compelled to follow it if he would become its 
master, a curious constitutional project is seen coming to the surface. This is the 
“Agreement of the people,” presented by the army to the House of Commons for 
its approval and eventual submission to the people. The idea of its authors, 
clearly stated in the document itself and discussed in the pamphlets of the day, 
was the establishment of a supreme law, placed beyond the reach of Parliament, 
defining the powers of that body and expressly declaring the rights which the 
nation reserved to itself, and which no authority might touch with impunity. 
This popular compact was to receive the personal adhesion of the citizens accord¬ 
ing to a special procedure therein provided. Its promulgation depended on its 
acceptance by the people. 

In the preliminary plan adopted by the regiments and submitted 
in 1647 to the general council of the army is found this remarkable 
declaration: 

That the power of this and all future representatives of this nation is inferior 
only to theirs who choose them, and doth extend, without the consent or concur¬ 
rence of any other person or persons, to the enacting, altering, and repealing of 
laws, to the erecting and abolishing of officers of all degrees, to the making of 
war and peace, to the treating with foreign states, and, generally, to whatsoever 
is not expressly or impliedly reserved by the represented to themselves. 

We read further on the declaration of rights of the nation: 

That in all laws made or to be made every person may be bound alike, and that 
no tenure, estate, charter, degree, birth, or place do confer any exemption from 
the ordinary course of legal proceedings whereunto others are subjected. 

The authors of the agreement of the people formed, so to speak, 
the left of the Puritan party. They were the ‘‘Independents,” from 
whose ranks the army was largely recruited, and whose valor had won 
the victory for Cromwell at Marston Moor and Naseby. Toleration of 
all Christians was their rallying cry. Their self-governing churches, 
free from all hierarchy, were founded upon a compact of covenant 
adopted by the members of the congregation, and to the congregation 
alone, as Christ’s representatives on earth. The assembly of the 
faithful, the visible source of all power, chose its own ministers, 
elders, and deacons, and itself exercised the power of excommunica¬ 
tion. 

We can easily understand how men thus accustomed to democracy 
in the church were tempted to try it in the state. Upon the point of 
founding a republic, they went about it in the same way as they would 
to organize a church congregation. They wished to base it upon a 
formal compact emanating from the social body, which, naturally, 
they were compelled to regard as the possessor of sovereignty. 

IN AMERICA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

These English Puritans were not then fully successful, and one 
reason of it was that so many of them emigrated to New England 
before the revolution which beheaded Charles I, during the troublous 
times and immediately after. But they brought their ideas and 
principles with them, and this is their history in the new land: 

For its firm establishment and free development the Puritan democracy required 
a virgin soil. This it found beyond the ocean. In 1620. five years before the 
accession of Charles I, a body of fugitive Congregat'ionalists broke away from the 
Old World and its feudalism. These are the men whom American history rever¬ 
ently calls the “Pilgrim Fathers.” On the point of landing and founding New 


154 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Plymouth, they formed themselves into a body politic by a solemn compact signed 
by all the adult males of the company. By this act drawn up in the imitation of 
their church covenants, the colony was instituted. 

In it we find the following: 

And by virtue hereof (we) do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal 
laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, from time to time, as be thought 
most convenient for the general good of the colony, and unto which we promise 
all due submission and obedience. 

The pioneers of Connecticut had withdrawn from the older colony 
of Massachusetts Bay because of political differences. Being con¬ 
sistent Congregationalists and advanced democrats, they were the 
first to reach those principles which we have seen the independents 
supported in the mother country. In 1638 their pastor, Thomas 
Hooker, soul and leader of the new emigration, developed the follow¬ 
ing themes in a sermon presented to us by the notes of an auditor: 

That the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people, by God’s own 
allowances. 

They who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also 
to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call 
them. And this, first, because the foundation of authority is laid in the free 
consent of the people. 

RHODE ISLAND. 

In 1641 the general assembly of the colonists of the island, which 
still bears the Indian name Aquidneck, adopted this decree: 

It is ordered and unanimously agreed upon that the government which this 
Bodie Politick doth attend unto in this island and the jurisdiction thereof, in 
favor of our prince, is a Democratic or Popular Government; that is to say, it is 
in the power of the body of Freemen, orderly assembled, or the major part of 
them, to make or constitute just laws, by which they will be regulated, and to 
depute from among themselves such ministers as shall see them faithfully 
executed between man and man. 

From the colonial records of Rhode Island, Volume 1, pages 148-149, 
there is the following much more explicit statement of how they used 
direct legislation almost as it is advocated to-day: 

The English parliamentary commission granted a charter or patent to the Provi- 
deuce Plantations on March 14, 1644. The first general assembly was held at 
Portsmouth. May 19-21, 1647. At this assembly the charter, an exceedingly lib¬ 
eral one, was adopted and the government systematically organized. 

The method devised by this assembly for the passing of laws, was a curious mix¬ 
ture of the representative system and the referendum and initiative. Any 
town of the colony—Providence, Newport, Portsmouth or Warwick—could initi¬ 
ate legislation. When a town desired the passage of a certain law, the matter 
was discussed and voted upon in the town meeting. In case of an affirmation 
vote, a copy of the bill was sent to each of the other towns to be debated and 
determined in like manner. A report of the action taken by the various towns was 
then referred to a ‘‘Committee for the general court,” consisting of six members 
from each town. This committee, acting as a central canvassing board, deter¬ 
mined whether or not the proposed measure had been sanctioned by the “ major 
parte of the colonie. ” If so, the matter was declared a law to stand until the next 
meeting of the general assembly. The final disposition of the matter was then 
made. It was, in short, the duty of the committee to promulgate laws, not to 
pass them. 

The initiative in legislation was, however, given to them to be exercised in this 
way. They were authorized to discuss and determine among themselves any mat¬ 
ter presented to them that might “be deemed necessary for the public weal and 
good of the whole.” The various members then reported the action of this com¬ 
mittee to their respective towns, by whom it was discussed and voted upon. The 
votes were sealed and forwarded to the general recorder of the colony to be opened 
and counted in the presence of the president. In case it was found that the propo¬ 
sition had received a majority vote, it was declared a law to stand until the next 
meeting of the general assembly, by which it was either confirmed or rejected. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


155 


MASSACHUSETTS. 

A very similar development took place in the Plymouth colony, and 
it has been described by Prof. George H. Haynes in his book on 
Representation and Suffrage in Massachusetts, 1620-1691, as follows: 

For nearly twenty years (after the colony was founded in 1620) the simple con¬ 
stitutional machinery of Plymouth underwent little change. Executive and ordi¬ 
nary judicial power were in the hands of the court or bench, consisting of the 
governor and seven assistants, elected annually by the whole assembly of freemen. 
The real lawmaking was done in primary assembly, in which only freemen were 
allowed to vote. This folkmoot was also the supreme judicial body. 

That the primitive market democracy sufficed in Plymouth for nearly a score of 
years was a corollary of the slow growth of the settlement. With the rise of new 
townships came the necessity for some system of government by delegated author¬ 
ity; but the development of the representative body was very gradual. 

The last step toward a complete representative system was definitely and con¬ 
sciously taken in the law of March, 1638, which enacted, “ That every town shall 
make choice of two of their freemen and the town of Plymouth of four to be com¬ 
mittees or deputies to join with the bench to enact and make all such ordinances 
as shall be judged to be good and wholesome.” The laws made by this represent¬ 
ative legislature, however, in case they should “prove prejudicial to the whole,” 
might be repealed by the freemen at the next court election. Thus the folkmoot 
continued to be the supreme legislative body. 

The smaller body received formal recognization as the regular legislative assem¬ 
bly in the act passed in September, 1658, intended to’summarize and interpret pre¬ 
vious laws upon the matter. It provided “that fit and able persons be annually 
chosen out of the freemen to attend the June courts and the several adjournments 
thereof, by the approved inhabitants qualified as in such case is provided of this 
jurisdiction, in their respective townships, for deputies, unto whom, with the 
magistrates as the body representative, is committed full power for making and 
repealing of all laws as upon their serious consideration they shall find, meet for 
the public weal of* this jurisdiction, and that when only such laws be enacted or 
repealed, except the governor, for the time being, shall see&weighty and necessary 
cause, by the complaint of the freemen or otherwise, to call a special court, either 
of the whole body’of the freemen or their deputies.” By this law there was given 
to the representative machinery of Plymouth definite form, which was not mate¬ 
rially altered during the subsequent history of the colony. 

Thus it will be seen that from 1638 to 1658 Plymouth had direct-leg¬ 
islation almost as advocated at present, and that after 1658, the gov¬ 
ernor, who was elected yearly, of his own motion or on petition of the 
voters, could call together the voters to veto a proposed measure as 
they saw fit; meanwhile, the governor could prevent any measure 
from going into force. These acts continued in force until 1686, when 
Plymouth was. united with the other New England colonies under the 
arbitrary rule of Governor Andros. He was removed in 1689, when 
this act went back into force and remained till 1691, when she was 
united with Massachusetts by the act of King William. 


PENNSYLVANIA. 


The same movement is also seen in other colonies. In Maryland 
the laws were at first made by an assembly of all the citizens. The 
Virginia Bill of Rights, of 1776, says: 

When any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, 
a majority of the community hath an indutiable, inalienable, and indefensible 
right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most con¬ 
ducive to the public weal. 

But only one more illustration will be given. The first constitution 
of Pennsylvania was drafted under tlie^direct influence of Benjamin 


156 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Franklin in 1776, and put into effect in 1777, and Paul L. Ford, in 
the Political Science Quarterly for September, 1895, says of it: 

All bills were to be printed “ for the consideration of the people ” before they 
went into a third reading, and, except “ on occasions of sudden necessity,” no bill 
was to become a law till the session of the assembly after that in which it origi¬ 
nated, thus practically establishing a referendum. 

THE UNITED STATES. 

These movements culminated in the Constitution of the United 
States, whose majestic preamble begins: 

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of 
America. 

Of this, Chief Justice Marshall, who has been called the “second 
author of the Constitution,” says: 

The Constitution of the United States was ordained not by the States in their 
sovereign capacities, but emphatically, and the preamble of the Constitution 
declares, by “the people of the United States.” There can be no doubt that it 
was competent to the people to invest the General Government with all the pow¬ 
ers which they might deem proper and necessary; to extend or restrain these 
powers according to their own good pleasure, and to give them a paramount and 
supreme authority. 

And later still, in the name of the Supreme Court, he said: 

That the people have an original right to establish for their future government 
such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness is 
the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. 

FRANCE. 

But this movement was not confined to the English-speaking races. 
Few statements of the underlying principles of direct legislation are 
stronger or clearer than two articles of the Declaration of Rights 
adopted almost unanimously by the French National Assembly in 
1789. They are: 

Sovereignty resides in the nation. No individual or body of individuals can 
exercise authority which does not directly proceed from it. 

Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to partici¬ 
pate in its formation, either personally or through representatives. 

A constitution was made under these declarations of rights but not 
submitted to the people, and of it and the one that followed, Dr. Bor- 
geaud says: 

On September 21, 1792, the first decree of the convention swept away with a 
single stroke the constitution of 1791. 

The national convention declares that there can be no constitution which is not 
adopted by the people. 

This declaration was made unanimously and without discussion. 

This convention appointed a committee to draft a constitution, and 
Dr. Borgeaud tells of their work, as follows: 

After having declared that the “ people possess the right to revise, reform, and 
change their constitution at any time, that one generation has no right to subject 
further generations to laws made by itself.” Condorcet, upon the strength of 
the information he had received, constructed a scheme of revision similar to the 
one destined to develop later in the United States and to become the American 
system. Fifty citizens may propose revision in the primary assembly to which 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


157 


they belong. If their proposal is adopted, the primary assemblies of the arron- 
dissement are convoked to deliberate on the matter. If the result is favorable, the 
primary assemblies of the department are called together, and if the majority of 
these demand the convocation of a convention the legislative body must then con¬ 
sult the nation. The legislature may, moreover, take the initiative itself in regard 
to this consultation. If the primary assemblies pronounce themselves in favor of 
a convention, the legislature designates.the place where it shall be held, which must 
always be more than 50 leagues from the place where it itself is sitting. 

This constitution as finally adopted by a popular vote of over a 
million in favor to less than fifty thousand against, contains the fol¬ 
lowing : 

Article 1. No. 17. Sovereignty resides in the whole body of citizens. 

No. 18. Sovereignty can not be attributed to any individual or limited body of 
individuals. 

No. 20. Every citizen has an equal right to participate directly or indirectly in 
the enactment of laws and the choice of representatives and public functionaries. 

This was followed by Napoleon’s one-man-rule, and he said after 
the defeat of Waterloo and his abdication: 


I have been defeated, not by the armies of the coalition, but by liberal ideas. 

These ideas were embodied in the various constitutional phrases. 
Napoleon professed them and the people supposed that he would carry 
them out. They supposed they were getting a short cut to their fa¬ 
mous desire of “Liberty, equality, and fraternity,” when they gave 
Napoleon the power. He abused this power, and as Hr. Borgeaud 
says: 

The despot was crushed under the weight of his own past. The Emperor abdi¬ 
cated for the second time, not so much because he had been beaten at WateriOO 
as because the country was no longer with him to continue the contest. 

That Napoleon’s acknowledgment of what really defeated him is 
correct, is shown by the last article of the new constitutional plan dis¬ 
cussed by the Chamber of Deputies after his abdication and before 
the allies put Louis XVIII on the throne: 

The present constitution shall be submitted to the ratification of the citizens, 
who shall be called upon to vote by secret ballot in their primary assemblies. 


Even now a clearer statement of direct legislation could hardly be 
made. 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 


The Iberian Peninsula has some radical blood in it, and it come 
to the top early in this century, as is shown by Article III from the 
famous constitution of the Spanish Cortes of 1812: 

Sovereignty resides in the nation; and for this reason the nation alone possesses 
the right to establish its fundamental laws. 

And also by Article XXVI of the Portuguese Cortes adopted in 
1822: 

The nation is free and independent and can not be the property of anyone; it 
alone possesses the power to make, through its deputies in the Cortes, its consti¬ 
tution or fundamental law, independent of royal sanction. 

These are wonderfully liberal sentiments for those times. 

SWITZERLAND. 

The birthplace of direct legislation has furnished examples of its 
use in the Landesgemeinden, or popular assemblies for lawmaking— 


158 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


town meetings, we would call them—which have been held in the 
mountain Cantons from time immemorial and in the Volksanfragen, 
or popular consultations established in Bern and Zurich in the fif¬ 
teenth and sixteenth centuries and in the voting in the Swiss Diet 
during the middle ages, “ad referendum,” or subject to reference to 
the home authorities. This latter is where referendum gets its name. 
But Switzerland was not really a nation till this century. 

The first Helvetic constitution was drawn up at Napoleon’s sugges¬ 
tion and adopted in 1798 by popular vote. It was one of the first, if 
not the first, European constitution to be adopted .by popular vote in 
modern times. But, proving defective in many ways, it was revised 
five years later, and this revision was made under Napoleon’s direc¬ 
tion and adopted by one of those tricks through which both Napoleons, 
I and III, cast so much discredit on the plebiscite, which is only 
another form of the referendum. 

Dr. Borgeaud describes this as follows: 

The ratification took place according to the system of public registers established 
in France after the eighteenth Bruinaire. There were 332,048 qualified voters 
inscribed. Of these 72,453 voted for and 92,423 against accepting the constitution. 
This was a check, but its authors had foreseen this possibility and had inserted in 
advance, in the summons to the electors, the provision that abstention would be 
considered as tacitly expressing approval. Consequently the 167,172 citizens who 
had not voted were counted as in favor of it, and the constitution having thus 
received “the approval of the great majority of citizens qualified to vote in Hel¬ 
vetia*’ was declared the fundamental law of the Republic. 

This was followed by a civil war and the adoption of cantonal con¬ 
stitutions in several by popular assemblies or popular vote. 

At Geneva the citizens had for centuries been called in general council to pass 
upon the laws and edicts of the Republic, hence the constitution with which the 
last of the Swiss Cantons was to be received into the confederation was submit¬ 
ted to the people of Geneva by reason of their natural rights. 

In 1830 the federal constitution was revised, submitted to the peo¬ 
ple, and adopted, and 

in the course of the year 1831 Solothurn, Lucerne, Basel, Zurich, St. Gall, Thur- 
gau, Argau, Schatfhausen, and Bern, one after another, revised their constitutions 
in the way which had been described. Freiburg did the same, but the work of 
its constitutional convention was not submitted to the people. The Canton of 
Vaud, finding itself distanced in the general onward movement by its confederates 
in German Switzerland, very soon overthrew its charter, which had already been 
revised but not confirmed by the people, and replaced it by a constitution which 
received a popular ratification July 8, 1831. All the new Swiss constitutions pro¬ 
claimed the sovereignty of the people. * * * “ The people,” said Vulliemin, 
“hailed with joy the day that placed them, free and hopeful, under ti ’protection 
of laws which they had themselves made and accepted. ’ * * * 

The principle that the constituent power resides in the people is henceforth 
firmly, definitely established in Switzerland. History has only to record its subse¬ 
quent development. But right here a new phenomenon presents itself, the date of 
which is important. The plebiscite, born of the revolution, became united with 
the old Germanic popular rights, which had been preserved among the little 
democracies of the High Alps. The institutions which have arisen from this alli¬ 
ance are those of contemporary Switzerland. They are the so-called referendum, 
or act of popular legislation, and the popular initiative, whose wide extension in 
the field of constitutional legislation is the principal feature of the development 
of the constitutional law of modern Swiss democracy. 

The right of initiative is the right to present to a political body a proposition 
which the latter is obliged to act upon either by adoption or rejection, in case of 
adoption the project becomes the basis of a law emanating from that body. This 
differs from the right of simple petition, out of which it grows, in that he who 
makes use of it pari icipates by that very act in the exercise of the power which 
resides in the body in question. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 159 

Further progress has been along these lines, and the author sums it 
up as follows: 

In the world of thought contemporary Switzerland has become an important 
power. Only yesterday, split up into twenty-two petty nations, it possessed but the 
rudiments of federal institutions. Its political history was too local, too diverse, 
to be much studied abroad. Popular government was being gradually evolved in 
the obscurity of the Cantons. But this is no longer the case. The constitutions 
of 1848 and 1874 have brought order out of chaos. Men have seen in the heart of 
Europe the rise and persistence of a democratic State sufficiently large to furnish 
the world with an example T hich may be quoted with advantage, which is being 
quoted every day. Evidence is being furnished to societies which are profoundly 
moved by the spirit of modern progress. 

The Swiss peasant journeying to the next villege in his Sunday garb to deposit 
his “Yes ” or “ No ” in the urn at the schoolhouse would shake his head incredu¬ 
lously if told that his act may have an interest for men outside of his own coun¬ 
try, living far away beyond the mountains. Yet such is the case. The old his¬ 
toric nations are marching one after the other, or are preparing to march, toward 
democracy, like the columns of an army slowly advancing into an unknown 
country. This peasant is a scout of the advance guard of this army. 

And the author sums the whole matter up in the opening part of 
the book: 

Democracy, as has been said, is more than a form of government; it is a state of 
society. It is a state toward which all contemporary nations are tending by a seem¬ 
ingly inevitable law of evolution. Some have already reached it, and are making 
for themselves and for others the difficult experiment of popular government. 
Others are marching toward it more or less rapidly. Finally others are held back 
by the force of their medteival traditions or by their imperfect civilization, but 
all are fatally drawn on toward it by the conquests of science and industry, by the 
annihilation of space, by the diffusion of knowledge, by all that constitutes modern 
progress. 


Appendix No. 25. 

[From The Arena, a monthly published in Boston, of June, 1896.] 

THE DIRECT-LEGISLATION MOVEMENT AND ITS LEADERS, CON¬ 
DENSED. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, editor of the Direct Legislation Record.] 

The origins of direct legislation are veiled in the mists of antiq¬ 
uity. On the one side they reach back to the ancient Greek and 
Latin civic assemblies of free en; on the other to the Teutonic Lands- 
gemeinden, still surviving in the mountain Cantons of Switzerland 
and revived in the New England town meeting. 

But in its modern form of a demand for the initiative and referen¬ 
dum in communities too large to have direct legislation by town meet¬ 
ing, it is a growth of the last half century. It has been developed 
and firmly rooted in the model republic of Europe, Switzerland. Half 
a century ago Switzerland was not a nation, but a loosely federated 
group of States, wrenched by a bitter civil war, rent by violent reli¬ 
gious prejudices, torn by class feelings and race antipathies. To-day 
it is a nation bound together by self-government. Vice-President 
Hammer said recently of his country: 

Never has our country been so united. Never have our resources been more 
abundant nor its military force more considerable and better organized. 

The movement in Switzerland for the initiative and referendum, 
while it had its roots in the Landsgemeinden of the mountain Cantons, 

S. Doc. 26-43 



160 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

in tlie Volksanfragen or popular consultations established in Zurich 
and Bern in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in the fact 
that the members of the Swiss Diet up to 1848 could only vote ad 
referendum, subject to ratification, yet did not fairly show itself 
above ground till after the civil war of the Sonderbund and the adop¬ 
tion of the first national constitution of 1848. That constitution pro¬ 
vided for its own ratification by the people, and also provided that 
the cantonal constitutions should be “according to republican forms, 
representative or democratic,” and that they should be ‘ ‘ ratified by the 
people and may be amended whenever the absolute majority of all the 
citizens demand it. ” The three men who did the most to crystallize 
democratic public opinion at that time were the two Frenchmen, Louis 
Blanc and Emile Girardin, and the German, Martin Rittinghausen. 
The latter for years wrote and published, traveled and spoke, partic¬ 
ularly in Germanic Switzerland. His writings are valuable to-day. 

Various of the Cantons went on changing their constitutions, ever 
making them more democratic; but the next great registration of this 
democratic movement was in 1869, when the Canton of Zurich adopted 
a new constitution by which the grand council of that State ceased to 
possess legislative powers. They could frame laws, but they could 
not pass them. This is the obligatory referendum, that all laws 
passed by the lawmaking bod}^ shall be sent to the vote of the people 
for acceptance or rejection. The people alone are sovereign. As a 
necessary correlative to this, the initiative was adopted. This is the 
power of a group of voters to effectively propose laws independently 
of the lawmaking body, which, after discussion in the lawmaking 
body and among the people, are finally voted on by the people. 

The man who was the most influential in the drafting and adoption 
of this constitution was Charles Burkly, of Zurich, who has served 
his country in many capacities, but in none more signalty than in his 
work for direct legislation. He is living, a hale and hearty man of 
73, and is still actively corresponding and writing on direct legislation 
and serving in his city’s grand council. He has been well called the 
father of the referendum. 

Here a point and there another, the other Cantons and the Federal 
Government have followed the lead of Zurich until now direct legis¬ 
lation is embedded in the federal constitution and in all of the can¬ 
tonal constitutions save that of reactionary Freiburg. In the French 
Cantons during this time Victor Considerant, by pen and voice, was a 
great factor. It has been extended to municipal government with most 
happy results, and every year sees some improvement in the methods 
used or strengthening of the principle in statute or constitution. 
But, above all, it is embedded in the hearts of the people, and no 
public man dares to openly even suggest its weakening. 

In England there has been some progress. Prof. A. V. Dicey, as 
early as 1886 or 1887, wrote in favor of it in the Nation, published in 
New York, and later in the London Spectator, the Contemporary 
Review, the National Review, and other papers. The London Spec¬ 
tator, the Daily Chronicle, the Weekly Times and Echo, and other 
papers have championed it. Lord Salisbury has come out in favor of 
a variation of the referendum. Mr. Strachey, editor of the Spectator, 
writes: 

Generally it is fair to say that the Home Rulers reject the referendum and the 
Unionists theoretically approve though they have not as yet made it apart of their 
platform. More and more interest is yearly attracted to the subject. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


161 


The local veto bill, which failed in the last Parliament, applied a 
form of the referendum to the liquor question. Most of the large 
trades unions have used the initiative and referendum for years, and 
“they find,” writes J. Morrison Davidson, an active worker for it, 
“the results in every way superior to that obtained by representation.” 
Alexander M. Thompson, associate editor of the Clarion, an influential 
labor paper, lias written a brilliant pamphlet on it and is continually 
working for it. The Fabian Society is discussing it. But, while the 
signs point toward the dawn, direct legislation can not be said to have 
yet risen above the horizon as a political issue in England. 

The situation is similar, though perhaps a little more advanced, in 
France, despite the bad name which Louis Napoleon gave to the pleb¬ 
iscite by his gross abuse of reference to the people. It has also started 
in New Zealand, where it is an issue, and in Australia. 

But, next to Switzerland, the movement has made the most prog¬ 
ress in the republic of the New World. It should. Chief Justice 
Marshall, who has been called ‘ ‘ the second author of the Constitu¬ 
tion,” has truly said: 

That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, 
such principles as in their opinion shall most conduce to their happiness, is the 
basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. 

Direct legislation is the culmination of democracy or self-govern¬ 
ment, and “democracy,” as Charles Borgeaud has said, “is more 
than a form of government; it is a state of society toward which all 
contemporary nations are tending by a seemingly inevitable law of 
evolution.” 

The literary movement began some seven or eight years ago, and 
two or three years before there was any educational propaganda or 
political movement. It is curious how the same ideas seem to strike 
men entirety unknown to each other. They come spontaneously, a 
growth of the time. This is seen both in the literary and political 
movement for direct legislation. In 1888 Boyd Winchester, then 
United States minister at the Swiss capital, began to write on Swiss 
institutions, and it culminated in his book published in 1891. In 1889 
Prof. Bernard Moses published his essay on The Federal Government 
of Switzerland, and Sir F. O. Adams and C. D. Cunningham their 
book, which was followed in 1891 by J. M. Vincent’s scholarly State 
and Federal Government in Switzerland, and since there have been 
many others. 

In 1890 W. D. McCrackan sent a series of letters on the initiative 
and referendum to the Evening Post of New York City, and followed 
it with articles in the Arena, Atlantic, New England Magazine, and 
other periodicals, and with lectures given in many places. 

J. W. Sullivan began to collect data relative to direct legislation in 
1883, and in 1888 went to Switzerland to study it on the ground. He 
spent four months there interviewing men and getting facts. In the 
spring of 1889 he published a series of letters on it in the New York 
Times, and in May, 1889, he had an article on “The referendum in 
Switzerland ” in the Chautauquan Magazine. This was followed in 
March, 1892, by the publication of his book, Direct Legislation, the 
third edition of which, completing the eighteenth thousand, has just 
come from the press of the Coming Nation. With its compact, clear 
statements and complete review of the field it has done more in this 
country to crystallize and give definiteness of aim to the sentiment of 
the realty democratic leaders than any other one thing. It made con- 
S. Doc. 340-11 


162 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


verts, and they spread its circulation. “Few hooks,” says the Rev. 
W. D. P. Bliss, “have done more good in this century.” 

Mr. Sullivan followed it up with lectures, articles in periodicals, 
and in his editorial work on a reform newspaper. In 1894 he started 
the Direct Legislation Record, a little monthly which he defined as 
“A nonpartisan advocate of pure democracy.” 

The labor organizations, being almost of necessity conducted on 
democratic lines, were good fields for educational work. Uriah 
Stevens, the wise founder of the Knights of Labor, at its start pro¬ 
posed a thorough and carefully wrought out referendum for its gov¬ 
ernment. Since 1882 the general executive board have asked opinions 
from the local assemblies, and the decision to enter upon independ¬ 
ent political action was made by vote in response to a circular of the 
general master workman. In 1891 Master Workman Powderly recom¬ 
mended that the referendum be adopted in political government, 
and shortly after such a plank was inserted in the Knights of Labor 
preamble. 

Many of the trades unions are successfully using direct legislation, 
and in 1891 ten of the largest national and international unions with 
a membership then close on to 200,000 were using it; others have 
adopted it since. From 1892 it was the only political demand of the 
American Federation of Labor until 1894, when others were added. 
But it has been repeatedly and emphatically indorsed by this large 
and powerful though thoroughly democratic organization. Samuel 
Gompers, its president, is a firm believer and assists wherever he can, 
and at times his assistance has been very valuable. 

But this stand was largely influenced by Mr. Sullivan, who has been 
identified with the Typographical Union for years, and has also been 
a national lecturer of the American Federation of Labor. He has 
aided in the political work in New Jersey and New York and else¬ 
where. One of his best contributions to the movement has been the 
popularization of the name, direct legislation. At first it was generally 
known as initiative and referendum, which have an alien sound. 
Direct legislation is more comprehensive, including the town meeting 
as well, and it expresses the meaning of the movement better. 

The Farmers’ Alliance has been behind the other large labor organi¬ 
zations, as for two or three years its Supreme Council only passed 
resolutions favoring discussion of direct legislation. But at the 
Washington meeting last winter an emphatically worded demand for 
it was inserted in their platform. 

Outside of some curiously interesting but not fully known experi¬ 
ments in methods of legislation in New England and Pennsylvania in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there has been no political 
movement in this country for the initiative aiml referendum proper 
until 1891 and 1892. Previous to this, in 1882, Benjamin Urner, of 
Elizabeth, N. J., who had been defeated in an election by bribery, 
started a short-lived paper which actively advocated the initiative and 
referendum. It was thus known and agitated among reformers in 
New Jersey before the literary movement, which did not begin till 
six or seven years later. 

Early in 1892 a few gentlemen met in Newark, N. J., and organized 
the People’s Power League. The three main movers were J. W. 
Arrowsmith, George W. Hopping, and Henry A. Beckmeyer. On 
April 19, 1892, George H. Strobell introduced resolutions calling for 
direct legislation, at the Prohibitionist State Convention held at 
Trenton, N. J. They were tabled, but were the first direct legisla¬ 
tion resolutions in any political convention in this country outside of 


163 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

the direct legislation plank in the Socialist Labor party platform, 
which can not be said to have been adopted in this country, as it was 
taken in a mass with many other things from the foreign platform 
where it was put mainly through the work of Charles Burkly, of 
Zurich. The socialist organizations have done nothing to promote 
direct legislation in America, but, on the contrary, have deemed it 
inadvisable to help in its advancement lest attention might be diverted 
from the movement for the cooperative common wealth^ 

The People’s Power League was turned into the People’s Union, 
wnich drafted a law and constitutional amendment and circulated 
many tracts and pamphlets. In January, 1893, this was merged into 
the Direct Legislation League of New Jersey. 

In July, 1893, a permanent organization was formed for the league, 
with William A. Cotter as president. 

The legislative work began in the winter of 1894, when the amend¬ 
ment was introduced by Hon. Thomas McEwan, jr., a Republican 
elected from a Democratic district, and of so high a character that he 
was made the leader of his party on election without any previous 
legislative experience. He was ably seconded by Hon. William Har- 
rigan, the Democratic leader. Special hearings were given, but when 
it came to a vote the measure was defeated by Republicans, all but 
one of the Democrats voting for it. It had a close vote, 28 to 31. It 
was the cheapest propaganda yet devised, as the hearings and speeches 
were reported all over the State. 

In the summer of 1894 the league organized and held a valuable and 
widely noticed convention at Asbury Park. An amendment was in¬ 
troduced in 1895, but not allowed to come out of committee. But the 
agitation was not even barren of laws, as the referendum was attached 
to several important bills. The new parks of Essex County (appro¬ 
priation of $2,500,000), the increase of the pay of the firemen and 
policemen of Newark, all came about through a vote by the people 
obtained by the direct legislation member, Hon. George L. Smith. 

Out of the many others in the New Jersey work, only one more can 
be mentioned. Joseph R. Buchanan, of Newark, N. J., held the floor 
for two hours in the platform committee at the Omaha convention in 
1892, pleading for the insertion of direct legislation in the People’s 
Party platform. He finally secured a resolution favoring it. 

But New Jersey is not the only State that has moved. In 1894, Edgar 
L. Ryder pushed through the assembly at Albany, N. Y., a bill giving 
direct legislation to cities, but it did not go through the senate. A 
constitutional provision, very elaborately drawn, was urged at a spe¬ 
cial hearing on the constitutional convention of 1894, by Samuel Gom- 
pers, J. W. Sullivan, Clarence Ladd-Davis, Henry White, and others. 
In 1895, through the energy of Miss Florence Fairview, a constitutional 
amendment went through the senate and had enough members pledged 
to vote for it in the assembly, but was held up by Speaker Fish on the 
last day of the session. 

In Massachusetts Hon. Richard W. Irwin, backed by the labor 
organizations of Boston and Haverhill, with Harry Lloyd and Frank 
K. Foster at their head, secured the passage of the city bill in the 
lower house by a vote of 150 to 3, but it did not pass the senate. In 
1895 the same bill did not get out of committee, although every polit¬ 
ical party—there were five organizations—in the State had for two 
years had a demand for the referendum in their platforms. 

Meanwhile a group of men, acting independently, had started initia¬ 
tive and referendum leagues in 1894 in South Dakota and Kansas, 
and they were followed in 1895 by direct-legislation leagues in Michi- 


164 


DIRECl LEGISLATION, ETC. 

gan, Nebraska, and Colorado, and constitutional amendments had 
been introduced in these States, in Kansas and Colorado passing one 
house. John R. Morrisey, of the Detroit Typographical Union, was 
the first voice crying almost alone in Michigan; but there is an effi¬ 
cient league there now. Hon. J. Warner Mills, of Denver, ably 
drafted the Colorado amendment, which has some novel and effective 
features. The entire reform press in that State, led by the Denver 
News, advocates direct legislation. 

A constitutional amendment was introduced in Washington by the 
Hon. L. E. Rader, and received strong support. And last fall, by a 
voluntary arrangement, the town of Buckley, Wash., put the initia¬ 
tive and referendum into actual use. 

In Oregon W. S. U’Ren has been the mainspring of the movement, 
and in the winter of 1895 was employed as the legislative agent of all 
the labor organizations in the State to work at the capital for direct 
legislation. He came within 1 vote in the house and a tie in the 
senate of getting what he wanted. He wrote recently: 

We are sure of success soon. No great reform ever made such great strides 
before. Two years and two months ago not one man in a thousand in Oregon 
knew what initiative and referendum meant. To-day, I believe, three-fourths of 
the intelligent voters understand and favor this revolution. 

A curious development of the Oregon movement is for the volun¬ 
tary initiative and referendum. Candidates for legislative offices are 
not nominated until they have signed a pledge that they will pass and 
refer to the people interested, for the final enacting, any law which is 
petitioned for by 10 percent of the people, and that they will refer to 
the people any law which they may pass, for which there is a petition 
signed by 10 per cent of the people. They are preparing to apply 
this to both State and local matters, and desire to extend it to national 
affairs. 

The Oregon associated societies, which Mr. U’Ren has served, have 
circulated 70,000 pamphlets in English and German, presented a peti¬ 
tion to the legislature, signed by 13,000 people, and secured the 
indorsements of the People’s and Democratic parties’ State conven¬ 
tions and many Republican county conventions. 

In California F. J. Eddy has written ably and frequently and has, 
perhaps, been its most prominent advocate. Assemblyman Bledsoe 
urged an amendment in 1895. S. E. Moffett, editor of the San Fran¬ 
cisco Examiner, has written repeatedly on it, and in 1894 published 
his book Suggestions on Government, which is almost an ideal argu¬ 
ment. And the city of Alameda has actually put an advisory initia¬ 
tive and referendum into operation, the result of the first vote at the 
polls being to advise the city council to build a public library at a 
cost of $25,000. The reform press on the Coast is unanimously in 
favor of it, and several of the papers have gotten out special direct- 
legislation editions, which have had large circulations. 

Space forbids but one more notice, and that one is of the first bill 
actually drawn and introduced. It was done in 1891 by S. C. Whit- 
wam, at Guthrie, Okla., and was a creative act of his own. It did 
not pass, but he has been fighting for it since with ever-increasing 
chances of success. All causes have their pioneer heroes, and quite 
unconsciously Mr. Whitwam writes: 

I am talking referendum every night in the week the year around. Our country 
is poor, and during the summer I have camped on the open prairie without shelter, 
many nights. I carry a half of a 50-pound flour sack filled with biscuits, slung 
over my shoulder, and my pony and I share these; and the next legislature will 
pass my bill or a better. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


165 


There are not wanting indications that the wily political managers 
of the old parties, with the editors of the old-party papers, are willing 
to steal the reformers’ thunder with regard to direct legislation. As 
a matter of fact the reference of bills by legislative bodies is becom¬ 
ing more and more frequent. Notable recent instances have been the 
rapid transit and city consolidation bills in New York and the civil 
service and the Torrens title-registry system in Chicago. 

Again, the word “ referendum” is constantly in the daily papers, 
so that the reader must be far behind the times who is not familiar 
with the term. 

The course of the New York Sun has been significant. Their lead¬ 
ing book reviewer, surveying the movement as a philosopher, gave 
Mr. Sullivan’s direct legislation such a notice as is accorded only to 
books of unusual importance—one of four columns. The funny editor 
of the Sun, however, saw something to ridicule when the New Jersey 
movement started. But to-day the Sun’s news-column headings con¬ 
tain the word “ referendum ” on every occasion possible. The paper 
has accepted the referendum as in operation now as democratic, 
American, and practicable. 

Many other reform movements are merging into this direct-legisla¬ 
tion movement. While the silver men, the fiat-money man, the sound- 
money man, the civil-service reformer, the civic reformer,the socialist, 
the prohibitionist, the single taxer, etc., may each think his own 
special reform the most important and needed, they are all beginning 
to see that they can not even get a hearing without direct legislation. 
So that it is the first thing to get—not necessarily the most important, 
but the first. It is thus proving a real bond of union between hereto¬ 
fore warring economic beliefs. 

In every reform platform constructed nowadays, anywhere in the 
United States, direct legislation is one of the foremost planks, if not 
the foremost. 

This rapid and necessarily incomplete survey of the field shows at 
least one thing. This movement is not the work of one man or of 
one group of men. Its genesis is that of a true democratic move¬ 
ment arising spontaneously in many parts of the country. It is 
caused by conditions which have been growing progressively worse 
for the last quarter century. These conditions are economic, but 
are caused by the irresponsibility, corruption, and imbecility of leg¬ 
islative action. This is being more and more widely and deeply rec¬ 
ognized. The movement has men who voice it, but not a man or 
men who make it. If it had, it might stop with their defeat or dis¬ 
couragement. But its present leaders might be swept out of exist¬ 
ence to-morrow, when the movement would be delayed but not 
stopped—perhaps in the long run not delayed much. 

Its growth has been so rapid that some of us fear it may not be 
solid. But such forget that while the outward movement has only 
recently spread over all the country, saving some of the old Southern 
slave States—and there are signs of an awakening even in them—yet 
the inner desire for power in the hands of the people themselves is 
coexistent with the founding of our social system, and has grown with 
its growth, and the disgust with the legislative action and inaction has 
been becoming more intense during a quarter of a century. 

“History,” says Professor Herron, “is the progressive disclosure of 
the self-government of man as the providential design.” And a not 
far-distant time will see the inevitable accomplishment of this direct- 
legislation movement. 


166 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Appendix No. 26. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1897, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

THE REFERENDUM IN USE. 

The Outlook recentty said: 

While bills to establish the referendum are meeting with defeat after defeat, the 
principle of the referendum is quietly making headway. In a very literal sense 
its kingdom is being established without observation. Almost unnoticed by the 
daily press, the principle of the referendum was tried on a very comprehensive 
scale in many of the Western States at the recent elections. 

And it need not have limited States by the word “Western,” as the 
following statements of votings on constitutional amendments show. 
While these votings are real referendums, the interest in them was 
overshadowed by the crude and awkward referendum on the silver 
question. Yet they are important applications, and never before has 
such a record been gathered. The newspapers hardly notice them, and 
the returns were often not compiled till long after the exact vote on 
Presidential electors was known. But they show how deeply rooted 
is the principle and how quietly but surely it is extending. There are 
records here from 15 States and 2 cities. One State, Georgia, where 
two or three constitutional amendments were voted on, is not included, 
as it has not yet come in. With this exception, the record of State 
votings is presumably complete. A very important voting was taken 
in the city of Duluth, and some others, in December, in the cities of 
Massachusetts, which will be given in * the next Record, as accounts 
have been promised. Of course there are other local votings than 
these, and accounts of them will be welcomed. 

A careful reading of these accounts will convince any thoughtful 
person of five things: 

1. The people are insisting more and more that constitutions be 
extended more and more, so that they become codes of law on which 
the people decide. 

2. That almost without exception there is no bitter partisan feeling 
in the voting on measures, and that the people vote on them irre¬ 
spective of how they vote on men. 

3. That much greater discrimination is used than in voting on men. 

4. That while the vote is often smaller than that for Presidential 
electors, yet it was the more intelligent and fully posted who voted, 
thus making an extra-legal but automatic self-disfranchisement of 
the unfit. 

5. The decisions seem generally to have been very wise. 

Of course, there are other lessons to be learned from these votings, 
but these are enough to prove the value of its actual use. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

[By James E. Campion.] 

In this State there were two amendments to the constitution voted 
on last November, but they were really only divisions of the same 
question. The first was that the governor and other officers of the 
Commonwealth should hold office for two years, and the second was 
that the legislators should do the same. These were passed by two 
Republican legislatures, indorsed by the Republican convention, and 
condemned by the Democratic and Populist conventions. 

The total vote for Presidential electors was 401,568, of which Mc¬ 
Kinley got nearly 70 per cent and Bryan a little over 26 per cent. 


167 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

One Hundred and fifteen thousand five hundred and five votes were 
cast for the first amendment and 161,236 against, and 105,589 were 
cast for the second amendment and 156,211 against, or about 40 per cent 
for and 60 per cent against. This shows the independence of party 
ties when the vote is on measures, and it illustrates how ignorant the 
representatives are of the real opinion of their constituents. To 
reject a bad measure seemed of more importance to the average voter 
than the triumph of his party. In my opinion it was a most wise and 
just decision. 

Sixty-nine per cent and 65 per cent of those voting for electors also 
voted on the amendments, but they received a larger vote than minor 
candidates will often get, and probably only those interested voted. 

The Boston Herald favored the amendments, and said: “Biennials 
deserved a better fate.” But the Globe said: 

The advocates of biennialism rested their hopes for success on one thing and 
one thing only. They hoped for such an absorbing interest in the national con¬ 
test that the average voter would ignore this important State issue, and that thus 
the proposed innovation would be carried through by default. These hopes were 
sadly disappointed. The political diletantes, the lobbyists, and the would-be leg¬ 
islators who long for a chance to be “ approached ” and gain profit thereby have 
come to grief, one and all. 

The rebuke given to the advocates of biennials is so decisive that 
they will not recover from it for years. 

NEW YORK. 

TBy Clarence Ladd-Davis.] 

The vote in the State of New York at the election of November, 
1896, upon the forestry constitutional amendment, was 321,486 for and 
710,505 against the same, while the vote for President was 1,423,876. 
In other words, of nearly one million and a half of voters only about 
300,000 voters of those voting for President failed to vote upon an 
amendment which was little understood and which might be said to 
have not been discussed at all. This shows clearly that the argument 
raised against the referendum, that the people would not vote in large 
numbers upon laws referred to them, is not founded upon fact. The 
percentage of the voters actually voting for President who did not 
also vote for the amendment is far less than that of the voters of the 
State qualified to do so who failed to vote at all. A large proportion 
of the nearly 300,000 voters who failed to vote upon this amendment, 
in my opinion, did so through forgetfulness, and the rest declined to 
vote for the reason that they knew nothing whatever of the subject, 
and were willing to leave it to those whom they believed had studied 
it. The large majority against the amendment shows another trait 
of the voters which is an argument for the further extension of the 
referendum principle, and that is, the tendency of the voters to vote 
“no” when changes are to be made in the law of which they do not 
understand the import. This amendment was not discussed in the 
newspapers, one might say, at all, and the large majority of voters in 
the State heard of it for the first time when the ballots were handed 
to them election day. Not understanding the question, they believed 
it was safer to leave the law as it was than to make any changes what¬ 
ever. This proves clearly two important facts: First, that the Ameri¬ 
can voter, like his Swiss brother, is even more conservative than his 
legislators, and, second, that he is loath to have any changes made in 


168 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

the laws until he is himself firmly convinced of their usefulness and 
effect. 

The following clipping from the Outlook explains the wisdom of 
the people’s decision, and it was written and printed before the 
election: 

Some time before the assembling of the last constitutional convention it was 
discovered that the laws regulating the cutting of trees within the reservation 
were utterly ineffective, by reason of the lack of support in local public sentiment. 
In executing permits to cut the larger timber the most wanton destruction resulted, 
and a flagrant disregard of the interest of the State was exhibited. After long and 
careful examinati =>.u of the question by the late constitutional convention, a pro¬ 
viso was incorporated in the constitution, at the instance of the New York Board 
of Trade and Transportation, prohibiting altogether the cutting of timber on pub¬ 
lic lands. This, we believe, was the only proviso of the constitution which received 
the unanimous vote of the convention, and the ratification of the constitution by 
the people seemed to place the reserve beyond reach of the lumberman's ax. But 
the enemies of trees were not to be so speedily outwitted, and at the last legislature 
a constitutional amendment was proposed, which is to be voted upon on the 3d of 
November, virtually undoing the reform already accomplished, by permitting the 
leasing of 5-acre plots. 

The New York Journal says of it: 

The legislature which convened after the adoption of the new constitution first 
passed the proposed amendment. That legislature was Republican in both its 
branches. The next legislature, which was also Republican, ratified the action 
taken by its predecessor. The State board of fish, forest, and game commission¬ 
ers, a Republican body, indorsed the amendment. 

And the amendment was defeated by 400,000 majority, although the 
Republican electors had over 250,000 majority. 

NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J. 


[“A local referendum,” by J. Heidingsfeld.] 

^ Interested parties secured from the last legislature an act- enabling 
Middlesex County to issue bonds for building a bridge across the 
Raritan to connect South Amboy and Perth Amboy, with the proviso 
that the question should first be submitted to the voters in Middlesex 
County. Accordingly, the ticket had at the bottom the proposition: 
“Are you in favor of the bridge, or are you not?” Naturally the 
parties interested—that is, the citizens of Perth and South Amboy, 
Woodbridge, etc., small towns in our part of the county, who would 
have been the beneficiaries of the scheme—did some active canvassing 
in its favor, and probably would have won easily if Dr. Baldwin, in 
behalf of the City Club in New Brunswick, had not taken the matter 
in hand and worked up an adverse sentiment. 

All he did was to send 10,000 handbills over the county as far as 
they would go, showing the burden the taxpayers would have to bear 
in the building and maintenance of the bridge. 

The vote was strictly nonpartisan. While Perth Amboy went heav¬ 
ily Republican and South Amboy Democratic, both were almost unani¬ 
mously for the bridge. The balance of the county, irrespective of 
their Presidential vote, went heavily the other way. The bridge was 
defeated by something like 19,000 majority. The question is settled 
now for years. 

In my opinion, the vote was given on its merits, pure and simple. 
Yet if it had not been for the disinterested vigilance of Dr. Baldwin, 
as president of the City Club, and the expenditure of a few dollars 
contributed by private parties, there was grave danger of the inter- 


169 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

ested parties winning by the default and inertness of the average 
voter. The wheelmen, however, made an active canvass for it and 
wanted it. 


ARKANSAS. 

Last November the liquor-license law which was submitted to the 
people received 86,088 votes in favor to 61,862 against, or a total of 
147,950. The total vote for electors was 149,347; for governor, 141,801; 
for secretary of state, 137,318; for chief justice, 144,539. All of the 
nine officials voted for received less votes than the liquor license. It 
was not a partisan measure, but one the people were much interested in. 

TEXAS. 

[By Martin Braden.] 

The amendment to the constitution requiring six months’ residence 
in county and State before voting was carried by a vote of 258,262 for 
and 51,648 against. Another amendment providing that the State’s 
surplus school fund shall be invested in farms, to be operated by the 
State, was overwhelmingly defeated, the vote being 101,121 for and 
188,574 against. 

We have within Texas quite a variety of referendums—precinct, 
county, and city. On a petition of the required number (think it is 
15) citizens of any precinct petitioning the courts to order election 
in that precinct for local option, special school tax, the county judge 
must order the election. In cities and counties the board of aider- 
men and county commissioners’ court have power to order special 
elections for borrowing money straight or by bonds for public improve¬ 
ments of all kinds, exceeding in cities generally $10,000 to $50,000; 
counties, for bridges, jails, and court and school houses. 

LOUISIANA. 

[By E. J. Tabor, editor of the Banner of Liberty, of Minden, La.] 

The State elections in Louisiana are held in the spring and the 
national election in November, and so there were no amendments 
submitted at the last election; but in April of 1896 we voted on 
twenty different amendments. Most of these were partisan and 
rather indorsed by the State Democratic convention, but the suffrage 
amendment, relating to a property qualification, met with such uni¬ 
versal disfavor that all parties voted against it and the remaining 
ones were not voted on. The truth is, after the Democratic conven¬ 
tion indorsed them they saw that favoring the suffrage amendment 
would defeat their State ticket and a majority of their parish tickets, 
which created a panic among their candidates, and in their scramble 
for office they let their State convention proceedings go to dwell with 
“Ilis Satanic Majesty,” forgetting principle or independence. 

The vote against the suffrage amendment was an overwhelming 
majority. Quite a number of the amendments should have been sus¬ 
tained, but the majority, through fear of a trick, voted against the 
entire business. 

The people have been satisfied, and they are settled temporarily. I 
do not think there was a wise decision on some of them, but I do so 
far as the suffrage, the governor’s salary, courts of appeal, and those 
relating to enforcing collections and levying local taxation are con- 


170 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


cerned. I think those relating to convicts, Confederate soldiers, and 
one or two others should have been passed on favorably. I think the 
press in the main agree with me. 

MISSOURI. 

Four amendments w T ere voted on in Missouri. The first would have 
changed the capital from Jefferson to Sedalia, and was, as a corre¬ 
spondent says, “Simply an attempt to boom Sedalia real estate.” 
The second defined and enlarged the jurisdiction of the courts of 
appeal. The third reduced school age from 6 to 5 years, in order to 
include the kindergarten system. And the last related to public 
improvements in cities of 30,000 or less. 

They were not discussed in the press at all and were not party 
measures. They appeared in the middle of the ballot containing 3 
square feet of surface and 280 names. They were all defeated, show¬ 
ing that when the people do not understand a subject they will kill 
it. Yet those voting on the first amendment number 80 per cent of 
the Presidential vote; on the second, 59 percent; on the third, 62 per 
cent; and on the fourth, 57 per cent—a good barometer of the popu¬ 
lar interest in these questions. Yet the majority against was almost 
the same on all four, varying between 60 per cent and 66 per cent. 
This is curious, as the total number voting varied from 380,000 on the 
fourth to 516,000 on the first. 

A correspondent writes: 

The capital moving was unwise. The reorganization of the courts was favored 
by bench and bar, and I suppose would prove advantageous; and the vote against 
reducing the school age was, in my opinion, decidedly unwise. It will probably 
come up again at the first opportunity. It obtained a large majority in St. Louis. 

The last one was so put on the ballot that the voter could not tell 
what it meant. 


MINNESOTA. 

[By Frank Valesh.J 

At the election last November nine constitutional measures were 
submitted to a vote of the people of Minnesota, some of them being 
of great importance. All of these propositions were adopted except 
the one for a constitutional convention, which was not ratified because 
the present constitution provides that constitutional conventions shall 
be held only “if a majority of all electors voting at said election shall 
have voted for a convention,” while in voting upon laws and amend¬ 
ments “a majority of voters present and voting” suffices. The vote 
on the constitutional convention was—yes, 96,308; no, 70,568; total, 
166,876, or a little less than half of the Presidential vote of 343,319, 
and so this proposition failed of passage. 

The eight propositions which passed are as follows: 

First, a law to tax the unused lands of railroad corporations. At 
present the railroads pay a gross-earnings tax in lieu of all other 
taxes. Some of them hold large tracts of land in the newer counties. 
The question was raised that this law would impose double taxation 
and hence be unconstitutional. So the legislature let the people 
decide, and the proposition was overwhelmingly indorsed, the vote 
being—yes, 235,585; no, 29,530. 

This is properly a law, and not a part of the constitution, and shows 
how our Western legislatures are already using the referendum. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 171 

The second proposition is that the income derived from the internal 
improvement land fund shall be used for making public roads and 
bridges, and for no other purpose. The vote stood—yes, 152,765; no, 
28,991. J ’ ’ ’ ’ 

The third directs the legislature to create a board of pardons. The 
vote was—yes, 130,354; no, 45,097. 

The fourth declares in substance that only citizens of the United 
States who have been such for three months shall have the right to 
vote. This restricts the right of suffrage to actual citizens. Hereto¬ 
fore every male person above 21 years of age could vote at all elections 
provided he resided in this country one year. Now every foreign-born 
voter must be in the United States five years before he can vote. The 
vote on this proposition was—yes, 97,980; no, 52,454. Thus a majority 
of the people voting voted to disfranchise a large number of them¬ 
selves. 

The fifth proposition provides that all incorporated cities and villages 
shall have the right to frame their own charters. A board of 15 free¬ 
holders shall be selected under this act by the judges of the district 
court after four-sevenths of the voters decide for a new charter. This 
board of freeholders shall serve for life, and vacancies shall be filled as 
above. This is a limited home rule for cities. When the labor organi¬ 
zations of the State perceived the limitations regarding the selection 
of the charter makers they made a slight protest, but the proposition 
was adopted nevertheless. The vote—yes, 107,086; no, 58,312. 

The sixth proposition adopted was that no private property shall be 
taken [destroyed or damaged] for public use without compensation; 
the words in brackets were voted on. The vote stood—yes, 101,188; 
no, 56,839. 

The seventh proposition permits the loaning of the school fund, 
which is very large, to public corporations within the State. Hereto¬ 
fore none of this fund could be invested in Minnesota. The vote was— 
yes, 127,151; no, 36,134. 

The eighth proposition provides for the taxation of the property of 
sleeping-car and express companies, which at present are not taxed. 
The vote stood—yes, 163,694; no, 42,922. 

The total vote cast in Minnesota was 343,319. 

The vote for Presidential electors was as follows: 


Republican............ 193,503 

Democrat-Populist...... 139,735 

Prohibition____ 4,348 

National Democrat. 3,222 

Socialist-Labor. 954 


On looking over the total vote cast for each amendment, we find that 
on an average a little over 52 per cent of those voting for electors voted 
on these amendments. But the popular discrimination was shown by 
the fact that 265,115 votes were cast for the first, or over 77 per cent 
of the electoral vote, and only 150,454, or under 44 per cent of the 
electoral vote, for the fourth. The popular discrimination was further 
shown by the fact that while all were carried by about three-fourths 
in favor to one-fourth against, the first received nearly 90 per cent in 
favor, the second 84 per cent, and the last 80 per cent, while others 
received only 58 per cent, 64 per cent, and 65 per cent. This discrimi¬ 
nation is far larger than for men. 

I do not recall that party lines were drawn on any of these proposi¬ 
tions. The legislature of 1895 was overwhelmingly Republican, and 
there was an evident disposition to give the referendum principle the 







172 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


fullest possible test, without regard to the political aspects of the 
questions under consideration. 

The fact that the vote on amendments is smaller than on candidates 
is due to the overshadowing interest of national issues. 

The labor people are not wholly pleased with the city home-rule law, 
because they fear that the plan of selecting the members of the board 
and the property qualifications will deprive them of representation. 

The amendment restricting the suffrage to actual citizens will dis¬ 
franchise temporarily a great many foreign voters, and some now 
assert that were this amendment fully understood it would have been 
defeated. But it was fully discussed in the papers and generally 
approved, and the thoughtful citizens believe that it is eminently a 
wise measure. 

I am firmly of the opinion that the system of submitting laws and 
constitutional amendments to a vote of the people will only demon¬ 
strate its wisdom and practicability when elections for this purpose are 
held separately. At present amendments are voted upon at the gen¬ 
eral elections, when they are totally obscured by State and national 
issues and candidates. No one seems to have time to give them 
proper study in the midst of a heated political campaign, or to explain 
them properly to the voters. Let us have separate elections for this 
purpose by all means. 

The disposition of all these propositions is permanent unless the 
United States Supreme Court should overrule some of them. Of this, 
however, there is not much likelihood, except, perhaps, in regard to 
the law to tax the unused lands of railroads, which is regarded by some 
as double taxation. But even if the Supreme Court should reverse 
this law, it would only open the way for a rearrangement of the entire 
system of taxing these corporations. That could only work to the 
benefit of the State. Under the present gross-earnings system the 
railroads pay 3 per cent of their gross earnings to the State, while in 
some other States they pay as high as 7 per cent. 

On the whole, the general opinion prevails that these new laws are 
beneficial. 

At the fall election in Minneapolis a proposition was submitted to 
raise $200,000 for the school board and $400,000 for the extension of 
the municipal waterworks system, both of which were approved by 
the voters. 


NORTH DAKOTA. 

[By L. A. Ueland.] 

Several referendary votes have been taken in North Dakota since 
its admission as a State in 1889. At the same time that the constitu¬ 
tion was voted on there was submitted a separate paragraph for the 
prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. This amend¬ 
ment was adopted by a vote of 18,552 to 17,393, making a total of 
35,945 voting on this amendment to 35,549 on the balance of the con¬ 
stitution and 38,083 on Congressman. 

At the general election in 1892 a constitutional amendment for 
increasing the debt limit from $200,000 to 5 mills on the dollar of the 
assessed value was submitted. It gave the legislature power to dou¬ 
ble the State debt at once and further increase it as the wealth of the 
State increased. "Three thousand eight hundred and forty-eight votes 
were cast for it, and 10,600 against, a total of 14,448, to 36,235 cast for 
Congressman. 


173 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

In 1894 another amendment prohibiting the operation of lotteries 
within the State was voted on at the general election. Ten thousand 
five hundred and seventy-nine votes were cast for and 5,309 against, 
making a total of 15,888. At the same election the total vote for Con¬ 
gressman was 38,997. 

At the recent election of 1896 the voters had another amendment 
referred to them. 

It received 8,472 votes for and 14,596 against, total 23,068; while the 
highest vote cast for any McKinley elector was 26,335, to 20,686 cast 
for the Bryan elector having the highest vote. The constitution had 
fixed the places where all public institutions should be located. Walsh 
County, one of the largest in the State, had none placed within its 
borders. To get the prestige and material benefit that such an insti¬ 
tution would give to one of its largest towns, some men succeeded in 
getting this amendment passed by both houses of two successive leg¬ 
islatures. By the constitution the insane asylum and feeble-minded 
institutions were placed together under one management at James¬ 
town. The amendment sought to divide this in two, and put the feeble¬ 
minded institution at Grafton. The legislature was willing, but the 
people, to whom it had to be referred, generally thought it would 
increase the expenses without giving equivalent benefit. At this same 
election a proposition for a constitutional convention was voted on. 

There were 8,814 votes for and 15,112 against it—23,926 in all. This 
proposition was generally looked upon as a move to get the prohibi¬ 
tion amendment resubmitted. 

Ever since its adoption there has been a constant agitation for its 
repeal, but so far all efforts to get a resubmission amendment through 
the legislature have failed. A new constitutional convention would 
be expensive, its results uncertain to prohibition as well as other 
questions; and so the people voted against calling one. 

None of these were party measures, and no political party worked 
directly for or against any of them. 

These amendments were published before election several weeks in 
most papers of this State; but, with the exception of the prohibition 
amendment, their merits were little discussed by either press or pub¬ 
lic speakers. Consequently, only the most painstaking and best 
posted were prepared to vote on them. The ignorant voter is con¬ 
trolled largely by tradition and habit in voting for men. To get a 
certain set of men elected, the strongest determination is often shown 
by the most ignorant voters. They are the proper material out of 
which the most unreasonable partisan bigots are made; but, brought 
face to face with a question of principle on which they are neither 
prejudiced nor posted, they are disposed to refrain from voting for 
fear of having their ballots cast against their own interest. 

Not only did the real ignorant voters, of which class there are very 
few in this State, mostly abstain from voting on these amendments, 
but a large class as well who are intelligent enough in a general way, 
but who had failed to post themselves on the merits of the particular 
measures. 

When, consequently, the measures received only half as many votes 
as the men, it was the most intelligent half. These voters were the 
best qualified, and in the main cast their ballots intelligently and con¬ 
sistently. The other half indirectly indorsed the representative sys¬ 
tem. They waived their right to vote on the questions of principle, 
but availed themselves of their right to choose men to represent them. 

The reason for the prohibition amendment receiving nearly as large 


174 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


a vote as the officers was that it had been fully discussed and most 
voters had formed an opinion on it. As already indicated, this ques¬ 
tion is not settled yet. There is a general acquiescence in the result 
of the vote on the others by both press and people, and these ques¬ 
tions are fully settled, if not permanently, at least for a long time. 

SOUTH DAKOTA. 

There were four amendments voted on in South Dakota, and all 
received large majorities, but they were not properly printed on the 
ballot as directed by the constitution, and so they have all been 
declared null by the courts. 


NEBRASKA. 

Probably the most interesting constitutional referendums were held 
in Nebraska last November. Twelve amendments were submitted to 
the people, which is double the number voted on in California and 
more than double that voted on in any other State save Minnesota. 

The provisions of these amendments show the growing distrust of 
legislative bodies. Five of the twelve amendments limit the action 
of the legislature by providing that it requires three-fifths, two-thirds 
or three-quarters of the elected members to pass certain laws. The 
eighth provides that not less than three-fourths of the members can 
create new executive officers and two-thirds majority can abolish an 
office. Two, the tenth and twelfth, require referendums, the tenth 
on the merging of a smaller locality into a city, and there must be a. 
majority in favor of it in both the city and the locality, and the twelfth 
requires a two-thirds vote for a municipality to donate money for 
internal improvements up to 10 per cent of its assessed valuation, 
and for 5 per cent more a three-fourths vote. 

The eleventh prescribes secrecy of voting. Several of the others are 
mere detail matters. The sixth is the only radical departure from 
previous measures. By it “ the legislature may provide that in civil 
actions five-sixths of the jury may render a verdict, and the legisla¬ 
ture may authorize trial by a jury of a less number than twelve men 
in courts inferior to the district court.” Only two of the measures 
received either a larger total vote or a larger affirmative vote than 
this. 

The two longest amendments received both the largest total and 
the largest affirmative vote; they related to the Supreme Court and 
the investments of the educational funds of the State. It is curious 
that these amendments should be referred to the people by a legisla¬ 
ture strongly Republican, that every one of them should be accepted 
by the people by an average vote of 60 per cent in favor to 40 per 
cent against, and yet at the same time the people elected a legislature 
strongly Populist. 

The vote on the amendments varied from 104,3(19 to 122,475, and 
the first one received the highest number of votes, yet the eighth 
received the lowest and the ninth the next highest, which shows that 
there was a discrimination in the votes cast, and that the total vote 
on each showed, approximately, the popular opinion of the importance 
of the measure. 

The vote varied from 54 per cent in favor to 70 per cent in favor on 
the constitutional amendments, and yet in the voting for the eleven 
State officers and the Presidential electors, the Populists elected one 


175 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

man by a plurality of nearly 50 per cent of the vote and all the rest 
by majorities ranging from just over 50 per cent to 53 per cent. That 
is, the range of discrimination on men was only 4 per cent, from 49 
per cent to 53 per cent, while on measures it was 16 per cent, or four 
times as much, from 54 per cent to 70 per cent. This clearly shows 
that when the people vote for measures there is greater judgment 
used by those voting than when they vote for men, and the conditions, 
as will be described, were very unfavorable to the measures. 

More than one-half—to be exact, an average of 51.16 per cent—of 
those voting for Presidential electors did not vote on the amendment. 
This varied from 45 per cent to 53 per cent. The reasons for this 
are various. A correspondent in Omaha writes: 

We had a long ballot of about 150 names (3 feet long), besides a school board 
ballot in Omaha detached and this amendment ballot detached. The law provides 
no way for voters to see the amendments except by sample ballots (a foot and a 
half long of fine type), printed six days before election. Voters would have to go 
to the clerk's office or send for them. Consequently they did not generally see them 
before going to the polls. 

Our law gives only five minutes to mark a ballot. This rule I have never heard 
of being enforced when more time is required, but it sets a standard. Many voters 
refused to vote at all on amendments presented to them for the first time. 

These amendments were hardly mentioned in the press. The Presi¬ 
dential issue overshadowed everything else; and then Nebraska being 
the home of one of the Presidential candidates, personal feeling and 
State pride caused many to vote for electors. But those who did vote 
on the amendments exercised greater discrimination and judgment, 
as already shown. 

None of the measures were partisan or discussed from a partisan 
standpoint, and the result is generally looked on as good. 

COLORADO. 

[By Dr. Persifor M. Cook, member of 1897 Colorado legislature.] 

The vote last November on the constitutional amendment is a curi¬ 
ous confirmation of the claims of the advocates of direct legislation. 
The proposed amendment is long, containing 500 words, whereas the 
first constitution of New Hampshire contained only 600 words. It 
is involved and complicated. It contains two general propositions, 
easily defensible and suitable to a constitution, and the remaining 
two-thirds is on the funding of outstanding warrants into bonds. 

There were here at least six propositions. Some of these were prob¬ 
ably right and wise; others not. The Denver Republican said of 
one proposition: 

It is a fact that, included among the warrants which most fair-minded men 
would regard as due and payable, there are others, amounting to about $75,000, 
which are wholly illegal and void. The interest on these void warrants amounts 
to more than $30,000 in addition to the principal, and it hardly seems fair to sad¬ 
dle the people with a bonded debt to pay such obligations, even though others 
which ought to be settled are included in the scheme. 

And then it summed the whole matter up: 

We have no doubt that if the amendment is defeated next Tuesday the next 
legislature will form a better one, which can be adopted at the next general 
election. 

It is our judgment that the proposed amendments to the constitution should be 
defeated, and we shall vote against it. 

Most people were uncertain whether it was right or not. There had 
been a good deal of stealing, and they feared such steals were 

S. Doc. 26-44 


176 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


inclosed. I voted against the amendment, desiring to wait until the 
supreme court passed on all the accounts; when it does I will vote 
for it. It had been cooked up in a secret committee room. The 
money power had some kind of bond “amendment” up three times 
out of four for the last eight years, and as our sly political tricksters 
have placed in the constitution that but one section may be amended 
at one election, they who desire to prevent government by the people 
have it all their own way. The bond scheme will probably be up 
next time, but not with my consent. 

It was not a party question, though the Republicans rather favored 
and the Populists opposed it. The press was divided, but it was so 
complicated that not much attention was given to it. 

The vote stood 25,327 in favor and 39,790 against, or a total of 
65,117. It was thus defeated by over 60 per cent against to less than 
40 per cent in favor. But the vote for Presidential electors was 
189,272, so that about one out of three who voted for the electors 
voted on the amendment. 

This shows three things: First, a majority of the people will not 
vote on a thing they do not understand and which has some argu¬ 
ments for and some against; second, those who do vote will kill a 
thing they do not understand where it looks as if there was some job in 
it; third, party lines were not followed in this voting. The division 
on electors was 86 per cent Bryan, 13 per cent McKinley, 1 per cent 
prohibition; and on the amendment, 39 per cent for and 61 per cent 
against. 

And the Pueblo Courier brings out a fourth point: 

The operation of the referendum was nicely shown at the late election. Nearly 
all our State officers, including our representatives in the legislature, favored the 
issuing of bonds to pay an accumulated debt. When the people—the constituents 
of those officers—got a whack at the proposition they defeated it. This shows 
conclusively that if the officers had had full power and authority to act, an unnec¬ 
essary burden would have been forced on the people against their will. We are 
sure that many so-called laws that are in operation to-day would not be in force at 
all if the people had a chance to disapprove them. 

There is a general acquiescence, and the matter is settled for a 
time; but money being involved, it will surely be brought up again, 
though this is the second rejection on practically the same subject. 

MONTANA. 

[By J. H. Calderhead, of South Butte, Mont. ] 

1. The ostensible purpose of the proposed amendment voted on last 
November was to provide that all voters should have been citizens of 
the United States ninety days next preceding an election, the object 
being to put a stop to the wholesale naturalization of foreign-born 
residents which usually occurs just before election, and usually at the 
expense of the candidates for office. But the real purpose was thought 
to be a curtailment of the election franchise. This object was to be 
attained by omitting the words “and upon all questions which may 
be submitted to a vote of the people.” 

2. The Populists, suspicious of a sinister purpose, made an investi¬ 
gation, with the discovery as noted above. 

This proposed amendment was the action of the Republican legisla¬ 
ture of 1894, although it could hardly be said to bo a party measure. 

The opposition to its adoption came from the Populists, and the 
vote against it represents about the Populist vote of the State. The 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 177 

vote stood 3,350 for, 15,480 against; only about one-third of the voters 
voting on the amendment. 

The cause of such a light vote on the amendment was that the word¬ 
ing on the ballot was: 

For the amendment to the constitution. 

Against the amendment to the constitution. 

And it was placed at the bottom Of the official ballot but under no 
party. 

The attention of the voters was directed to the candidates, and, 
owing to the great interest taken in the issue of the national cam¬ 
paign, the amendment was lost sight of. 

The defeat of the amendment is generally satisfactory to the people 
of the State. 

3. The papers took no part in the matter. They published every¬ 
thing I furnished them against it and made no comment. 

This was scarcely a test of the value of the referendum. We had 
a better test two years ago, when we voted on the location of the cap¬ 
ital. One of the largest corporations in the country attempted to 
secure its location, but failed, after spending a vast sum of money, 
estimated at more than a million dollars, among the 48,000 voters of 
the State. 

A determined effort will be made in the legislature which meets 
January 4 to submit a direct-legislation amendment to the constitu¬ 
tion to the people; and if it passes the legislature, it is thought it will 
be adopted by the people, when a practical test of its value can be 
made. 

IDAHO. 

[By J. W. Hart, of Boise City.] 

The legislative acts embodying the amendments were published in 
full in State newspapers for the required number of days before the 
election, and the titles of the acts were placed on the official ballot at 
the head of it as follows: 

(1) Shall section 2 of Article VI of the constitution of the State of 
Idaho be so amended as to extend to women the equal right of suf¬ 
frage? 

(2) Shall section 18 of Article V of the constitution of the State of 
Idaho be so amended as to abolish the office of district attorney and 
create the office of county attorney? 

(3) Shall section 6 of Article XVIII of the constitution of the State 
of Idaho be so amended as to separate the offices of probate judges 
and county superintendents of public instruction? 

The vote for the equal suffrage amendment was 12,126, and the vote 
against it was 6,282. Total, 18,408. 

The vote for the county attorney amendment was 11,643, and the 
vote against it was 3,612. Total, 15,255. 

The vote for the county superintendent amendment was 11,147, and 
the vote against it was 3,952. Total, 15,099. 

The vote for McKinley electors was 6,314, the vote for Bryan electors 
was 23,135, Prohibitionists, 172. Total, 29,621. 

These amendments are not party measures. They were placed 
before the people by a nearly unanimous vote of the legislature. The 
equal-suffrage amendment was recommended in the party platforms 
of every State convention. The other two seem to have been regarded 
simply as desirable changes in the political machinery. The voting 
S. Doc. 340-12 


178 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

by the people does not show that party lines were drawn on any of 
the amendments, although there are reasons for believing that the 
Democrats were less favorable to the equal-suffrage amendment than 
the Republicans. 

You will observe from the above figures that the equal-suffrage 
amendment polled the most votes, but that less than 18,500 electors 
voted on it, while Presidential electors received in round numbers 
30,000. This result is somewhat discouraging, as indicating a lack of 
interest in a constitutional change of the most profound importance. 
The issue was most thoroughly canvassed. The equal-suffrage party 
received abundant assistance from the national organization, and held 
largely attended meetings throughout the State. It was generally 
believed, however, that the amendment would be passed, and many 
may have thought it not worth while to vote on a foregone conclusion. 
Furthermore, the almost unprecedented interest in the Presidential 
campaign no doubt tended to dwarf the equal-suffrage question as a 
political issue. The other two amendments were not discussed during 
the campaign at all. I do not think I ever heard them referred to in 
any political conversation at which I have been present. They were 
completely overshadowed by the other issues. 

There is no question as to the acquiescence of the people in the 
result, and there is no disposition whatever to reverse it in any 
quarter. 

I think that the people acted wisely in deciding for equal suffrage, 
and such is certainly the enlightened opinion of our people generally. 
An erroneous impression has been created by the fact that the State 
board of canvassers declined to certify that the equal-suffrage amend¬ 
ment had passed, on account of the somewhat ambiguous provision of 
the constitution to the effect that a constitutional amendment must 
receive a majority of the qualified voters voting. They declined, how¬ 
ever, not as being opposed to the measure, but because it was thought 
best to have a ruling of our supreme court on this technicality The 
court promptly and unanimously held that the constitutional pro¬ 
vision meant to refer to a majority of the electors voting on the 
amendment alone, and it had therefore passed. 

In regard to the other two amendments, I think myself that they 
are of doubtful expediency, as they create more offices, and it seems 
to me that we have officeholders enough already for a poor and 
sparsely populated State. The decision of the people on these ques¬ 
tions reflects the readiness with which Western Commonwealths 
experiment with different patterns of political machinery. 

We have an excellent and very salutary provision in our State con¬ 
stitution to the effect that no political subdivision of the State shall 
incur any indebtedness or liability in any manner or for any purpose 
exceeding in any one year the income and revenue provided for that 
year without the assent of two-thirds of the qualified electors thereof 
voting at an election to be held for that purpose, nor unless before or 
at the time of incurring such indebtedness provisions shall be made 
for the collection of an annual tax, sufficient to pay the interest on 
such indebtedness as it falls due, and also to constitute a sinking fund 
for the payment of the principal within twenty years from the time of 
contracting the indebtedness. Our supreme court has declared county 
warrants invalid which were issued in the face of this constitutional 
injunction. 

It may interest you to know that there is a very similar provision in 
the new State constitution of Utah. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


179 


WASHINGTON. 

[By E. L. Robinson, of Buckley, Wash.] 

Last fall there was an amendment relative to the qualifications for 
electors voted on, and in my own home—Pierce County—two more 
referendums on the question of ratifying and paying $6,236 and 
$9,906.38, which were debts illegally contracted by the county authori¬ 
ties for furnishing the court-house and current use. 

These propositions were printed at the bottom of a ballot over 2 
feet long, and with 102 names ahead of those referendary questions. 
Neither the amendment nor a synopsis of it was printed on the 
ballot, and to know what it was the voter was compelled to search in 
the official paper of his county, as the law provides no other means of 
informing him, and the papers said little editorially about it. 

None of the questions submitted could be considered party meas- 
uies. Little was thought of them until election day, as the money 
issue was the engrossing subject of discussion, and the partisan work¬ 
ers sought to engender all possible hate and malice in the Presidential 
contest. 

For weeks before election kindergarten object lessons on how to 
vote and “vote ’er straight” were taught in all the political clubs. 
The State law provides that an X at the top of the ticket opposite a 
party name votes for all the candidates of that party, and voters were 
urged by party bosses not to attempt to vote a split ticket. Thus the 
questions submitted, being at the bottom of the ticket, were over¬ 
looked by all but the thoughtful and careful electors and those whose 
attention was directed to them by interested parties. This produced 
an unconscious, but none the less effective, selection of voters. Those 
who voted on these questions were the careful, thoughtful, and inter¬ 
ested voters, and probably a wiser decision would be obtained from 
their vote than if every one had voted. 

I reached the polls in our precinct about one hour after they were 
opened. Seventy votes had then been polled, and it was generally 
conceded that they were all straight and not one on the referendum 
questions. Some of our most intelligent citizens were surprised to 
hear of them. 

In my own county the vote for Presidential electors was 10,217, for 
governor about 300 less, on the constitutional amendment 4,480, 
and on the ratification proposals, both of which were carried, 4,087 
and 4,038. Thus about 44 per cent and 40 per cent of the voting 
voters went to the bottom of the 2 feet of ballot and passed over a 
hundred names to these questions. 

In the whole State 93,004 voters cast their ballots for Presidential 
electors, and 40,002, or 44 per cent, voted on the amendment. It was 
carried by 28,019 for to 11,983 against. 

Our county debt ratification referendums, in my opinion, furnish 
as severe a trial of the principle as will often occur. They had been 
submitted twice before, were submitted now in pursuance of a threat 
made by the county commissioners that they would continue to sub¬ 
mit the question until the people were disgusted enough to allow it to 
carry. Their resolution to submit was made after the excitement of 
the national campaign had become so intense as to assure them that 
little thought would be taken outside of party lines. These three 
commissioners, all astute politicians, have succeeded in getting their 
illegal acts ratified by 27 per cent of the 10,000 voters (2.,742 voted in 


180 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

favor of the first and 2,640 for the second proposition). This is a dark 
picture for us who cherish the referendum principle as a means of 
raising the political intelligence among the masses. Yes, but the 
true facts of the experiment will lead us to the investigation of the 
defects and arm us against their repetition. The early application of 
a principle is always accompanied by difficulties. 

CALIFORNIA. 

[By Joseph Asbury Johnson, of San Francisco.] 

There were six constitutional amendments voted on last November. 
The first exempted mortgages and deeds of trust from taxation, and 
is thus characterized by the Tulare County News: 

No more unfair or unjust piece of legislation could be proposed than that which 
exempts from taxation mortgages and deeds of trust, which comprises in Tulare 
County about one-fifth of the taxable property, under the present law, and which, 
if relieved from its just portion of the burdens of taxation, would increase the 
burden on all other property that amount without lowering interest or being of 
any benefit whatever to any person except the special few in whose interest it its 
sought to legislate. 

The second permitted the use of voting machines, 4 ‘providing that 
secrecy in voting be preserved.” 

The third limited the liability of stockholders in a corporation to 
their shares only, and the same paper says of it: 

Amendment No. 3 is another piece of proposed legislation in the interest of the 
special few who are members of corporations organized to squeeze the fruits of 
labor out of those producing it; who find it more profitable to “bust” than con¬ 
tinue the squeezing process. 

The fourth and fifth simply provide for local self-government for 
San Francisco, which is now dependent on the State legislature in 
many ways, but the fifth was very long and complicated. 

The sixth was for woman suffrage. 

A title for each was printed on the ballot and places to mark yes 
or no. An analysis of the vote is very interesting: 



For. 

Against. 

Total. 

Majority. 

For. 

Against. 

First. 

63,824 

121,655 

82,509 

101,501 

101,539 

110,089 

162,945 
78,592 
109,193 
74,155 
74,909 
136,762 

226,769 
200,247 
191,702 
175.656 
176,448 
246,851 


99,121 

Second... 

43,163 

Third. 

26,684 

Fourth. 

27,346 

36,530 

Fifth. 


Sixth. 

26,673 

Average. 


96,852 

106,093 

202,945 







The total vote cast for Presidential electors was 290,466, or 87,521 
more than for the average. Thus 70 per cent of the electoral voters 
voted on the amendments. But the sixth amendment got 85 per cent 
of all the voters, while the fourth and fifth got only 60 per cent. Thus 
the distance between the electoral vote and that on the sixth is much 
less than that between either the second, third, fourth, or fifth and 
the sixth. Only 71 per cent of the number voting on the sixth voted * 
on the fourth and fifth. This clearly demonstrates that the people 
discriminated between what they were and were not interested in. 

Another significant fact is that while all these amendments were 
passed by one legislature, supposed to represent the people, the first 




























DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 181 

was defeated by nearly 100,000, and the second was carried by over 
43,000, and half of them were defeated. 

Another fact is that the numbers for and against, save on the 
fourth and fifth, which are similar in nature, are not at all regular, 
showing that the voters voting did not follow party lines or the orders 
of any leader, but voted as they saw fit. This means independence 
of political action. 

None of these amendments were party measures except the sixth, 
in a limited sense, since all the parties, except the Democracy, 
indorsed the amendment in favor of woman suffrage. 

It will be noted that the vote on the constitutional amendments 
was very much smaller than the vote for candidates, which is a 
marked evidence that only the more intelligent and thoughtful people 
took an interest in these important measures. And a further strik¬ 
ing proof that it was the intelligent vote which was cast for these 
amendments is the fact that both the affirmative and negative vote 
was decidedly right, with the exception of the sixth, which was ear¬ 
nestly opposed by liquor dealers and the ignorant foreign vote. 

There can be no doubt that the decision of the voters will stand 
unchallenged and will be universally accepted as final, with the excep¬ 
tion of the suffrage question, which possibly may be resubmitted in 
two years, though I doubt very much that it will be. 

SAN FRANCISCO. 

[By A. D. D’ Ancona, of San Francisco.] 

The vote on the charter on November 3 was as follows: For, 15,879; 
against, 17,978. Sixty-four thousand eight hundred and twenty per¬ 
sons voted at the election, therefore 30,963 persons voting expressed 
no opinion on the charter. A large number of these overlooked the 
matter (I did myself), through its place on the ticket (it was printed 
at the head of the ticket), looked like a heading, and was therefore 
overlooked; but the greater number failed to vote from indifference 
or from not knowing how to vote on the question. In my opinion the 
principal reasons for the defeat of the proposed charter were: 

1. The immense power centralized in the mayor, who was given the 
appointment and removal of most of the officers in the city govern¬ 
ment. As this included the civil-service commissioners, who were to 
examine all applicants for deputyships in the various departments, it 
was claimed that the mayor practically had the appointment of the 
3,000 employees of the city. 

2. The fear in the minds of the Catholics that the charter was an 
anti-Catholic, an A. P. A. document. I think there was no founda¬ 
tion for this fear, but it caused thousands of votes against it. 

There were numerous other minor objections, but the above were, 
I think, the main causes of the defeat of the charter. 


Appendix No. 27. 

[From Direct Legislation Record, April, 1898, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

PIECEMEAL DIRECT LEGISLATION IN IOWA. 

[By John M. Wok, President of Direct Legislation League of Iowa.] 

In Iowa we already have piecemeal or “popgun” direct legislation. 
That is to say, our legislature has at various times enacted that this 
or that can not be done without a popular vote, that this or that ques- 



182 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC- 

tion may be submitted, and that a certain percentage of voters may 
force a vote on certain questions. Below I give a synopsis of these 
laws, taking up the initiative first. These initiatives are all imperative: 

1. One hundred citizens of any city of over 7,000 inhabitants may 
cause the question of establishing a superior court to be submitted. 

2. A majority of the voters of a county may cause the board of 
supervisors to submit the question of relocation of the county seat. 

3. One-fourth of the voters of a county may petition for the sub¬ 
mission of a proposition to increase or decrease the number of the 
boarcT of supervisors. 

4. A majority of the members of Grand Army posts in any county 
may cause the question to be submitted as to aiding in the erection 
of a soldiers and sailors’ monument or memorial hall. 

5. One-fourth of the voters may cause the question as to restric¬ 
tions on stock running at large to be submitted. 

6. One-fourth of the voters may cause the question of raising taxes 
for public improvements or payments of debts to be submitted, or 
the question of the rescission of any such proposition that has already 
been adopted. 

7. Two-thirds of the voters of any village may cause the board of 
supervisors to change the name of such village. 

8. When a township includes a city or town, a majority of the voters 
residing outside the city or town may cause the board of supervisors 
to make the outside portion a separate township. 

9. A majority of the voters of a township may cause the trustees to 
submit the question of building a public hall. 

10. A majority of the voters of a township may cause the board of 
supervisors to change the name of such township. 

11. Twenty-five voters of any portion of territory may cause the 
district court to submit the question as to whether such territory shall 
be incorporated as a town. 

12. Twenty-five of the voters of such town may cause the question 
of discontinuing the incorporation to be submitted. 

13. A majority of the voters of a portion of territory adjoining a 
city or town may cause the question as to being annexed to such city 
or town to be submitted. 

14. Ten per cent of the voters of a city or town, under special char¬ 
ter, may cause the council to submit the question as to abandoning 
such charter. 

15. Twenty-five property owners of each ward in a city, or fifty 
owners of a town, may cause the mayor to submit the question as to 
municipal ownership of waterworks, gas works, electric light or power 
plants, or granting franchises for such. 

16. A majority of resident freehold taxpayers of a city or town may 
cause the council to submit the question of constructing or aiding in 
the construction of bridges. 

17. A majority of resident freehold taxpayers of a city or town may 
cause the council to submit the question of donating land for depots, 
machine shops, etc. 

18. One-third of the taxpayers of a city or town may cause the 
question as to aiding in the construction or repair of a highway lead¬ 
ing thereto to be submitted. 

19. One-half of the voters of a town may cause the question of 
transferring public plats or lots to an independent school district to 
be submitted. 

20. Twenty-five property owners in each ward in a city, under spe- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


183 


cial charter, may cause the mayor to submit the question as to owner¬ 
ship of water works, gas works, electric light or power plants or grant¬ 
ing franchises for same or for railways, street railways, or telephone 
systems. 

21. One-fourth of the voters of a 3ity, under a special charter, may 
cause the question as to amending such charter to be submitted. 

22. On petition of one-half of the voters of such city the council 
may submit such amendment at a special election. 

23 Any person may cause the question of establishing, vacating, 
or altering a road to be tried before the board of supervisors. 

24. A majority of the resident freehold taxpayers of a township, 
town, or city may cause the question as to aiding railroad company 
in construction of projected railroad to be submitted. 

25. From 50 to 80 per cent of the voters of a city or town, according 
to population, may cause the mulct tax to be substituted for the pro¬ 
hibition law against selling liquor. 

26. Fifty per cent of the voters of a city or town, or 65 per cent of 
the voters of a county, may cause the liquor-manufacturing law to be 
substituted for the prohibitory law against manufacturing. 

27. One-third of the voters of a county may cause the question as to 
establishing a high school to be submitted. 

28. From 5 to 50 voters of a school district, according to population, 
may cause the submission of the questions as to changing of text¬ 
books, disposing of schoolhouse, site, or other property, adding 
branches of instruction, letting school buildings for public meetings, 
transferring surplus in schoolhouse fund to teachers’ or contingent 
fund, obtaining roads for access to schoolhouse, voting tax not exceed¬ 
ing 10 mills on the dollar per annum for purchasing grounds, erecting 
schoolhouses and paying for same, procuring libraries for and open¬ 
ing roads to schoolhouses. 

29. Ten voters of any city, town, or village of over 100 residents 
may cause the question of making it an independent school district 
to be submitted. 

30. One-half of the school directors in a county may cause the ques¬ 
tion of uniform text-books to be submitted. 

31. One-third of the voters of a school corporation may cause the 
question of free text-books to be submitted. 

Thus we see that there are thirty-one instances in which the right 
of the initiative is given, and as many of these include more than one 
subject it will be seen that there are two or three times that many 
separate questions that may be initiated. 

Now let us turn to the referendums. The first four are provided 
by the constitution; the remainder are statutory: 

1. The State can not go in debt more than $250,000 without submit¬ 
ting the question. 

2. All acts creating banks must be submitted. 

3. Amendments to the constitution must be submitted. 

4. Every ten years the general assembly may submit the question 
as to whether a convention shall be called to revise the constitution. 

5. The board of supervisors may submit the question as to increase 
in their number. 

6. Questions as to counties erecting court-house, jail, poorhouse, 
other buildings or bridges, to cost over $5,000, or purchasing real 
estate to cost cover $2,000, must be submitted. 

7. The board of supervisors may submit the question as to borrow¬ 
ing money to aid in the erection of public buildings; the question as 


184 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


to any local or police regulation not inconsistent with the laws of the 
State, and the question as to levying a higher tax than provided by 
law. 

8. The board of supervisors may submit questions as to regulating 
or restraining stock running at large. 

9. No territory can be annexed to a city or town without submission. 

10. The council may submit the question as to annexing territory 
in cases wherein such territory has asked for annexation. 

11. The council must submit the question as to uniting the city or 
town with another contiguous one. 

12. No city or town can extend its limits without submission. 

13. The name of a city or town can not be changed without sub¬ 
mission. 

14. No waterworks, gas works, or electric light or power plants shall 
be authorized, established, erected, leased, or sold, or franchise 
extended or renewed without submission. 

15. The same is true in cities under special charter, and it also 
applies to railways, street railways, or telephone systems. 

16. Cities and towns can not appropriate money to found and main¬ 
tain libraries without submission. 

17. No waterworks can be purchased or constructed by cities of the 
first class without submission. 

18. Cities and towns can not grant, renew, or extend franchises for 
the use of its streets, highways, avenues, alleys, or public places for 
telegraph, district telegraph, telephone, street railway, or other elec¬ 
tric wires without submission. 

19. Cities can not deepen, widen, straighten, wall, fill, cover, alter, 
or change the channel of any water course, or part thereof, flowing 
through the limits of such city, or construct artificial channels or cov¬ 
ered drains without submission. 

20. Certain city or town councils may submit the question as to 
levying taxes for the purchase of parks. 

These referendurns are all either obligatory or optional with the 
bodies referring. None of them are based on the principle of the 
optional referendum—optional with the people. Being only piecemeal 
or popgun direct legislation, few people even know of the existence of 
these provisions; whereas, if we had a general direct legislation law, 
it would necessarily attract attention and become the settled policy. 

So far as I can learn, these initiative and referendum statutes have 
been taken advantage of very seldom; no doubt partly because of the 
general ignorance of their existence, but chiefly, so far as the initia¬ 
tives are concerned, because almost all of the percentages are entirely 
too high. 

In this city—Des Moines—there were two questions referred to the 
people by the city council on its own motion on the 17th day of May, 
1897. They were as follows: 

First. Shall the city council authorize the McCaskey & Holcomb Company to 
construct an electric-lighting plant and erect the necessary wires and apparatus to 
furnish light to the city of Des Moines? 

Second. Shall an electric-lighting plant, with necessary wires and apparatus, be 
established by the city of Des Moinestf 

These propositions, were both carried by an overwhelming majority. 
The vote for the first was 3,807; against, 1,379. The vote for the 
second was 2,812; against, 969. The total vote of the city in the Presi¬ 
dential election of 1896 was 13,534. The total vote cast for and against 
the first of the above propositions was 5,186. The vote in 1896 here, 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


185 


as everywhere, was much larger than normal. So the vote on the 
first proposition was about one-half the normal vote of the city, which, 
it occurs to me, is doing pretty well, considering the fact that it was 
the people’s first experience for a long time; that it was a special elec¬ 
tion, and the further fact that the two propositions on which they 
were asked to vote were inconsistent, and, therefore, confusing. The 
court has recently declared the whole proceeding illegal, on account 
of that very inconsistency among other reasons. " It is possible that a 
new vote will be taken at the coming municipal election in March. 
It is alleged, whether truthfully or not I am unable to state, that the 
General Electric Company spent $2,000 in trying to defeat the propo¬ 
sitions last May. If that be true, it will readily be seen that it did 
not have much effect, for both propositions were carried three to one. 
The moral is that big campaign funds can be spent with much more 
evil effect on one man, or a small body of men, than on the whole 
people. 

In the city of Dubuque there is a movement on foot to submit the 
question of municipalizing the waterworks at the March election. 
Thus the ball keeps rolling. 


Appendix No. 28. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, June, 1897, a quarterly published in Newark, N. J.] 

A REVIEW OF THE MICHIGAN REFERENDUMS. 

[By Hon. Albert M. Todd, Member of Congress, of Kalamazoo.] 

On the average during the past ten years only about 10 per cent of 
the ballots cast show any vote either way on the various referendums 
submitted. This is due mostly to two causes: First, the vague and 
indefinite manner in which the referendums are worded on the ballots. 
There have been 29 referendums submitted in Michigan during the 
past twenty years, but there have been but two of these intelligently 
stated so that the voter could tell the meaning of his “Yes” or 4 4 No.” 
For instance, there have been six referendums relative to the salaries 
of State officers, but with one single exception these have been stated 
on the ballots simply “Amendment to constitution relative to salary" 
of State officers.” In one case only it was stated that the amendment 
proposed an increase, and it was impossible for^ voters to learn, even 
from the election officers, what the purpose of the referendum was. 
In the year 1887 there was submitted on the ballots “Amendment to 
constitution relative to the liquor traffic.” It was widely known that 
this amendment was for prohibition, and it was the chief issue at the 
election, which was a spring election, and at which no State officers or 
Presidential or party questions were voted upon, yet a vote was cast of 
362,917 relative to this referendum as against the total Presidential 
vote last preceding of 401,186, giving about 80 per cent of the entire 
electoral vote for the referendum. This large vote probably repre¬ 
sented 99 per cent of all votes cast at that election, and it was because 
it was thoroughly understood, was publicly discussed, and was a vital 
question. The amendment was declared lost by less than 6,000, but 
intimidation was practiced in the cities by the liquor interest, and 
the returns were also falsified in some counties, and a petition by the 
temperance element for a review and investigation of the returns was 
denied by a legislature to please the liquor interests. 



186 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Again, in 1894, a referendum was submitted which was plainly stated, 
“Amendment to constitution authorizing inmates of Soldiers’ Homes 
to vote where such Homes are situated. ” The vote on this was, “Yes,” 
127,758; “No,” 29,607. This was not a Presidential year, but the vote 
for governor at the same election was 416,980, giving 38 per cent of the 
total votes for the referendum, the vote being 157,365. The same year 
another referendum was submitted, requiring foreign-born electors to 
be citizens of the United States or to have declared their intention as 
such two years and six months previous in order to be qualified electors 
in this State. This was worded on the ballot simply “Amendment to 
constitution relative to the qualifications of electors,” but it must have 
been well understood, because the total vote on this referendum was 
about the, same as on the one just mentioned, and it was adopted by a 
majority of 85,551, so that this also, with the one just mentioned, indi¬ 
cates that the people are generally on the moral and right side when 
the question is not connected with party interests. 

In this State the voters have favored economy in government and in 
salaries, but voted in favor of an increase in the salaries of circuit 
judges twice when such increase seemed for the public good. In the 
spring election of 1893 a referendum was submitted “Relative to sal¬ 
aries of State officers,” its purpose being to increase the salaries. The 
returns were forged and the number of votes favoring the increase was 
fraudulently erased and changed so that it was reported as carried. 
But on a review by the supreme court the amendment was declared 
lost. 

The referendums submitted in this State have not generally been 
considered party measures. 

Some of the referendums, particularly those relating to salaries of 
State officers, have been resubmitted, as either the people or the offi¬ 
cers interested were not satisfied with the former result. 

I think the decision of the people, where the votes have been hon¬ 
estly counted and returned, and where the referendums were clearly 
stated, would in every case show a majority for good government and 
advancing the status of citizenship and morality. 

The press appears largely to be swayed by corporate interests, and 
the people have not voted often as dictated by the press. 

There should be vigorous measures taken compelling the proper 
authorities to clearly set forth the nature of the referendums voted 
upon on the ballot, as this is one of the chief factors in the question. 
I know in my own case that the nature of these amendments, which I 
have only had knowledge of through the papers, had escaped my 
memory on election day, and I could not always find election officers 
who could inform me. This certainly is “ criminal negligence ” on the 
part of the officers who dictate the wording on the ballots. 


Appendix No. 29. 

DIRECT LEGISLATION IN ACTUAL USE IN THE SOUTH. 

[By Miss Frances E. Willard, in the Voice.] 

It is well known that a larger area in the South is under prohibition 
by means of local option than in the North, and this territory is con¬ 
stantly increasing. If I remember correctly, the figures given me by 
our true friend and brother, Bishop Galloway, of Mississippi, they 



187 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

have 89 counties, of which all but 11 are under local option, and these 
are chiefly the river counties and the “Black Belt.” In Arkansas, 
for fifteen years or more, women have had what we call “the vote by 
signature ”—i. e., the autograph of a woman on a petition for local 
option counts as much as the autograph of a man, and if a majority 
sign these petitions, then the sale of intoxicants can not go on. 

We have just come from Fort Smith, the big “border town” of 
Arkansas, across the big river from the Indian Territory, and here I 
talked with Frank Parke, esq., forty years or more a resident here, 
and a leading temperance man. He says that he does not believe 
there is a State in the Union more “salted down” to practical prohi¬ 
bition than Arkansas. This is, as I understand it, the working of the 
law: If a county votes “ dry,” then the sale of liquor is forbidden; but 
even if it votes “ wet” the people can get out a petition in any town¬ 
ship, and if it is signed by a majority of the adults, then that township 
is dry in spite of the county vote, and the same is true in all localities 
that are situated 3 miles from any school or church house; but this is 
done on the petition of the adult population, male and female. The 
legislature has repeatedly given (on petition) an area of from 5 to 10 
miles, taking an educational institution as a center, and that entire 
distance is legally free from the saloon. At the last election the 
entire State (by which I mean the aggregate of all the local option 
votes) went for prohibition by 3,000 majority, so that we believe that 
as this educational process goes on among the people they will, within 
a very few years, reach the plane of knowledge and conviction that 
will carry a statutory law, and when this is done they can proceed in 
the same regular and systematic manner to constitutional prohibition. 

George C. Christian tells me that 43 out of 75 counties in Arkansas 
aue under prohibition, and only 688 saloons have been licensed in the 
whole State since January 1. He says the respect for law is greater 
here than with us, and enforcement is the rule. What I have said of 
States in the South applies with some modification to all. Texas, 
where I have just been, is voting for prohibition in all the smaller 
towns; Georgia and Tennessee the same, and so on, except South 
Carolina. 


Appendix No. 30. 

THE PROBLEM OF THE CITIES. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy, in the American Federationist, 1895.] 

There are said to be republican villages in America where everybody is civil, 
honest, and substantially comfortable. But these villages have several unfair 
advantages—there are no lawyers in them, no town councils, no parliaments. 
Such republican villages on a large scale would be worth fighting for. (John 
Ruskin.) 

That our city governments are failures is a fact that is becoming 
more and more widely recognized. Many of them are so corrupt that 
the services they render their citizens are poor compared with the 
services given by the city officials in semibarbarous countries like 
Turkey and Russia. That the chief of police in San Francisco for¬ 
merly kept a gambling house, and that the police of Chicago licensed 
brothels unofficially, for their own private pocket, would seem to indi¬ 
cate that the lowest depths had been reached. But there was a still 
lower one proved before the Lexow committee in New York, where 



188 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

it was shown that the police were in league with a professional 
abortionist. 

Is this rottenness due to democracy? This is the first question to 
answer. 

Statistics prove that our population is moving rapidly into the cities. 
The country is being depleted to build up the cities. More and more 
people are gathering in the cities. The life of our nation is bound 
up with the life of the cities. They are becoming more and more 
powerful, not only as population centers, but also centers for the dif¬ 
fusion of thought and opinion, intellectual, social, economic, and 
political. As our cities go, so goes the nation. If our municipal gov¬ 
ernments can not be made pure and efficient, then good-by to the 
Republic. 

The second question is: How can our municipal governments be 
purified and strengthened? These questions are of vital interest. I 
propose to state some facts by way of answer. 

The town of Brookline, Mass., has a population of 15,000. Within 
a radius of 10 miles of its town hall is a population of nearly a million, 
increasing at the rate of 2,000 a month. The town is entirely sur¬ 
rounded by the cities of Boston and Newton. It is a part of the 
county of Norfolk, although entirely cut off from it by the counties 
of Suffolk and Middlesex. It is within the metropolitan district of 
Boston, but is not a part of the city of Boston. It is a town within a 
city. The social and economic conditions are identical with other 
parts of the city of Boston. If the results of the government of Brook¬ 
line are different from the results of the government of Boston, surely 
it can only be due to a difference in the methods of government and 
to the principles at the bottom of those methods. 

Boston is not as badly governed as some cities, nor as well gov¬ 
erned as others. It has its corruption, its bosses, its rings, and its 
unsolved problems. Almost annually does it apply to the State leg¬ 
islature for the solution of some of these problems, and the legislature 
almost as often puts an inch plaster on a gaping sore. The other 
times it either does nothing or turns out one set of officeholders to 
put in another. The city is abused by its West End Street Railway, 
and its gas companies charge one rate in one part of the city and a 
higher in another part, getting all the traffic will bear. It is a fair 
example of our municipal bad government. It has a mayor, aider- 
men, etc., as do other large cities. 

Brookline is a New England town, with the New England town 
meeting, in which any voter can take part, can ask any question of 
the five selectmen (who are the town’s chief officers, elected annually) 
and of the other officers; he, with nine others, can secure the insertion 
of any proposition in the warrant for calling the town meeting, where 
it will be discussed and voted on. The people appropriate every dol¬ 
lar that is spent. It is the most democratic system of government 
that can possibly be devised. 

It may be said that the business is limited, that the money passing 
through their hands doesn’t amount to much, and that if it did the 
system would break down. 

A warrant for the yearly town meeting lies before me; it contains 
18 propositions calling for action. Accompanying it is a pamphlet of 
17 pages, being the Report of the Selectmen of Brookline on the Arti¬ 
cles in the Warrant; and a book of 452 pages, with 164 additional 
pages of assessor’s reports, and 18 more pages of index, which is the 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 189 

One Hundred and Eighty-ninth Annual Report of the Town Officers 
of Brookline. The business is not limited. 

I find on page 343 of this report that the receipts last year were 
$1,795,217, and the payments $1,795,530. This is nearly three times 
the receipts and expenditures of the State of New Hampshire and 
about the same as the State fund of New Jersey. The entire debt of 
Brookline amounts to $2,146,284, with sinking fund and cash against 
it of $407,105. In the warrants are proposals to give the treasurer 
power to borrow, for certain specified purposes, $154,500, and, with 
the approval of the selectmen, to borrow up to $300,000, in anticipa¬ 
tion of tax payments. During the past year he did borrow $604,600, 
and in most of these cases he was directed not to pay over 4 per cent 
interest on loans, and really did pay 3| per cent to per cent. The 
credit of a purely democratic government is thus shown to be of the 
very best. The United States paid a higher rate of interest on its last 
bond issue. The appropriations asked for in the warrant foot up to 
$928,252. This is nearly $3,000 a day for running expenses. Other 
facts could easily be cited to prove that the amount of money involved 
is not small, but these are sufficient. 

How is it done? During the decade from 1784 to 1795, the town 
meetings averaged seven a year. Although the business has increased 
two hundred times during the century, there were during the decade 
from 1884 to 1895 an average of eight town meetings a year, and if 
adjournments and general elections are omitted, there were four a 
year. 

The meetings begin at 7 p. m. and are usually over between 10 and 
11 p. m. The town has a population of 15,000. The polls assessed 
are 4,163. Nearly all of these are voters. At the election in 1894, 
1,932 votes were cast for governor and about the same for the other 
officers. The town hall will seat between 1,000 and 1,200, and occa¬ 
sionally is filled, but usually there is between 200 and 300. Policemen 
are at the door with a check list, and only voters and reporters are 
allowed on the floor. The galleries are open to the nonvoting public. 
Thus, by the law of natural selection, the public-spirited voters attend 
and the lazy and indifferent stay at home, while there is enough of 
the cantankerous element to prevent stagnation. 

There is little tendency to oratory and many questions are asked. 
The previously circulated reports are very full and accurate, but occa¬ 
sionally a question will bring out an unseen point, and an appropriation 
will be withheld. There is no foul logrolling. The differences between 
different sections are adjusted man to man, face to face. There is a 
fair reciprocity. No one section feels safe to act the part of the dog 
in the manger. 

There is a distinct tendency to economy. This makes the selectmen 
careful in recommending appropriations. The first question asked is: 
“Will it pay?” If yes, the appropriations are liberal. Thus, the 
owners of land along Beacon street wished to widen it from 50 to 160 
feet, with a parkway in the center. There was an amicable coopera¬ 
tion between them and the town, and it was done in 1886 and 1887, at 
an expense of $615,000, of which the town paid $465,000. Boston con¬ 
trols Beacon street before it enters and after it leaves Brookline, and 
was compelled to follow the town’s lead. A pure democracy leads in 
improvements a community governed by a centralized, delegated body. 
In six years the property immediately on each side of this parkway 
had increased in value so much that the town was collecting an addi- 


190 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

tional annual revenue of $51,000, a handsome return on an investment 
of $465,000. So it is all through the town work. A cursory glance at 
the many reports shows at once that the people are not niggardly in 
voting appropriations where they are convinced that it will do good. 

Of course there are differences of opinion. But they are usually 
settled by discussion before a vote is had. On looking over the records 
of the seven town meetings of last year, I find several propositions 
passed over to the next meeting for more consideration, a few indefi¬ 
nitely postponed, but most of them passed unanimously without the 
taking of the yeas and nays, and where the yeas and nays have been 
taken only one vote has been recorded in the negative. A full and 
free discussion of things which directly concern them develops har¬ 
mony of opinion and action. 

Only a few more advantages of this democratic government can be 
touched on here. 

More than a tenth of the appropriations are for the schools. These 
have increased from $39,100 in 1884 to $97,715 in 1895. The schools 
are, from this report, very well managed. Besides the primary and 
grammar schools, they include a high school, manual-training school, 
a chemical laboratory, art and music instruction, physical training, 
and evening schools, free to all, of course. 

The report on the waterworks is almost a model. Brookline claims 
to have far better water than Boston. The board of health report 
shows that sickness and the death rate are decreasing. The librarian’s 
report shows a circulation of 5.2 books per inhabitant this year, 
against 4.52 last year. So one might go through these various reports, 
which gauge the progress of a democracy in good government. Only 
two other items will be given: Five hundred dollars are appropriated 
for a public bath house for the boys. The assessor’s report gives the 
names and residence of each taxpayer, with the poll tax, the total 
personal estate and its value, a description of the real estate and its 
value, and the total tax. A democracy wishes to know its resources 
and to have them publicly known. 

The average rate of taxation from 1874 to 1885 was $11.95. For the 
last ten years the average rate has been $10.90, a large decrease, and 
it was a decade of the boldest improvement. The rate is so much less 
than the surrounding city of Boston that it attracts many people of 
the very best class, and in Boston Brookline is called the tax-dodgers’ 
paradise. A pure democracy lowers the taxation and keeps the rates 
low. It is a great improvement over a delegated government in this 
respect. 

Are there any scandals in Brookline municipal government? None. 
Some few were charged in the Boston papers a few years ago, investi¬ 
gated, and disproved. The same officers are reelected again and 
again without much change, and irrespective of their party affiliations. 

How do the inhabitants regard it? They have been urged repeat¬ 
edly to join Boston; have fought against it in the legislature and the 
courts; have voted on it and always voted it down by large majorities. 

Mr. Chandler sums the facts up well in a recent number of the New 
England Magazine: 

If it is painful to be impressed with the failure of Americans to govern their 
large cities well, * * * it is with relief that we turn to the example of about 
6 square miles of area in the very heart of a great metropolitan city district in 
America, which area represents a larger proportion of homes for all classes, of 
superior schools and public library, better roads, better water and sewers, and 
more efficient and honorable management than is found elsewhere, with a conse¬ 
quent accumulation of taxable property exceeding that of any other municipality 
in the world of the same population. 


191 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Equally favorable facts could be garnered from the history of hun¬ 
dreds of New England towns, but Brookline was taken because it was 
inside of a city and had all the problems of a large city save those of 
bad government. Boston gave up the town meeting in 1822, when it 
had the population of 40,000, yearly expenditures of $249,000, and a 
debt of $100,000. In the face of these facts you may say that dele¬ 
gated government is a failure, but you can not say that democratic 
government has failed. 

Mr. Chandler has spoken of the adaptability and elasticity of the 
town meeting, and has said that it can be applied to almost any vol¬ 
ume of business, though not in its primitive state to a very large 
population. 

What is the principle at the bottom of the town meeting? It is that 
the officers are the servants and not the rulers of the people, who have 
the direct and constant control of their servants. How can this prin¬ 
ciple be applied to large cities? The trades unions, with the American 
Federation at their head, have already blazed the way by their use 
and advocacy of direct legislation through the initiative and the ref¬ 
erendum. 

If the referendum was in force, no ordinance, contract, or other 
measure, after passing the city council would go into effect under a 
reasonable time, which, in my opinion, should not be less than thirty 
nor more than sixty days for a city matter. If, during that time, a 
reasonable minority of the people should petition for its reference to 
a poll of the people, it would be voted on by the people after a fit 
time for discussion, and a majority against would prevent its passage. 
The percentage petitioning should be of such a size as to shut out 
merely crank petitions and to show that there was a need of investi¬ 
gating the matter, but it would be better to run the risk of an occa¬ 
sional unnecessary reference to the people than to make the percent¬ 
age so large that it would be almost impossible to get a petition signed. 
In my opinion, 5 per cent is about right. 

This will stop boodling and the lobby, as the aldermen can not be 
sure of delivering the goods. It will draw a better class of people into 
the common council, because they will then be above suspicion. 
They can not sell a franchise or a privilege unless the people are 
satisfied with the conditions. 

The referendum is negative, preventive. The positive, construct¬ 
ive part of direct legislation is the initiative. If the initiative was in 
force a suitable minority of the voters could petition for any matter, 
and this petition would go before the common council, taking prece¬ 
dence of other matters. They would have to vote on it. If they did 
not pass it in a reasonable time, which, in my opinion, should not be 
less than thirty nor more than sixty days, it would go to a poll of the 
people. I think the same percentage should govern initiating peti¬ 
tions as referendary ones, that is, 5 per cent. But these are matters 
of detail to be settled by local conditions. 

The referendum alone would be of incalculable value, but is incom¬ 
plete without the initiative. As constructive is vastly superior to 
preventive work, the initiative is vastly more important than the 
referendum. 

No legislation can be more direct than that of the New England town 
meeting. The initiative and referendum, by allowing the people to 
group and regroup, approving or rejecting any individual measure, 
applies the direct legislation of the New England town meeting, in a 
perfectly feasible manner, to large populations. It would not often 
need to be used, as the fact that it could be used at any time would 


192 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

prevent the introduction of bad measures. The officials would be 
true servants of the people and not rulers. 

The principle back of it is not new. The Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence says all governments should be “by the consent of the gov¬ 
erned.” Direct legislation is a method of applying the very bedrock 
principle of our government, the rule of the majority. 

The plutocracy, which is rapidly gaining control, knows full well 
that it must advocate high and noble principles and then not carry 
them into effect. It is strong in opposing methods because they are 
not practical, or unconstitutional, or for any other reason than that 
it is the principle they oppose. It behooves all true patriots and 
lovers of their kind to go beyond the principle, to make sure of the 
methods in season and out, till they get them. 

In conclusion, our city governments are rotten. 

The life of the Republic depends on our municipal governments. 
Democracy is not a failure in cities. Delegated responsibility is a 
failure. Democracy can be applied to cities, States, and the nation 
by the initiative and the referendum, known together as direct legis¬ 
lation. Push the method. 


Appendix No. 31. 

[From the New England Magazine.] 

DIRECT LEGISLATION IN NEW ENGLAND. 

[By Dr. Lewis G. Janes.] 

* * * New England has clung to the town meeting as the very 

palladium of her liberties. The citizens of the town of Boston did 
not abdicate their rights of direct legislation in local affairs until 1822, 
when the population was mounting above 40,000. The registered 
voters numbered between seven and eight thousand. Recent examples 
show that the people of New England are still jealous of their ancient 
privileges. Brockton did not become a city until its population 
approximated 15,000. Quincy itself clung to the folkmote, by Mr. 
Adams’s own confession, until the gathering of the voters in a single 
legislative body became a practical impossibility. Waltham, Chic¬ 
opee, and Pittsfield bear testimonj? to the same popular feeling. Paw¬ 
tucket, in Rhode Island, did not claim municipal honors until its 
population approximated 20,000. Woonsocket divided its suffrage 
between the towns of Smithfield and Cumberland until it became a 
substantial village. The high average of urban population in N ew 
England, as compared with the West and South, especially with those 
States in which the county constitutes the unit of local government, 
maintained without the compulsion of legal limitation, also testifies 
to the love for the town meeting in the section where it originated. 

Nor is this testimony more emphatic than that of its steady career 
of conquest in those States where it has come into direct competition 
with the representative county system of government. In Illinois, 
where the county had the start in the race under the constitution of 
1818, and where the option of adopting the town meeting was left to 
the counties by the constitution of 1848, less than one-fifth of the 
State now remains under the county system. In Missouri, where the 
town meeting was introduced under county option, it has also rapidly 



193 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

extended its sway, as likewise in California, under a similar provision 
of the new constitution. In Minnesota and North and South Dakota 
the option is not left with the counties, but with the people themselves 
in each local community. The wise foresight of the fathers, in the 
ordinances of 1785 and 1787, provided for the division of the great 
Northwest Territory into townships as well as counties; and these 
little divisions, 6 miles square on the map, everywhere furnish the 
ready opportunity for inaugurating a local democratic government. 
In Minnesota and the Dakotas, whenever 25 resident voters in one of 
these township sections petition to the legislature for the right of self- 
government, it is made obligatory on the legislature to organize the 
township and recognize the government of the people. One or two 
sections in each township are set apart for schools, so that with the 
obligation to exercise the duties of citizenship goes also the opportunity 
for a wise preparation for those duties. 

In the South, also, under conditions far less favorable than those 
usually existing in the North and West, the system of town govern¬ 
ment is now rapidly extending, so that the prophetic injunction of 
Thomas Jefferson seems likely to be fulfilled: 

Those wards, called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their 
government, and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the 
wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preservation. 
* * * As Cato then concluded every speech with the words “Carthago delenda 
est,” so do I every opinion with the injunction, “Divide the counties into wards!” 

In Arkansas and Tennessee, in Virginia and North Carolina, the 
township has taken root and is steadily growing in public favor. In 
Arkansas, where newspapers and churches are less numerous than in 
New England, every voter is served with a personal summons to the 
town meeting by a constable on horseback, who rides from house to 
house in the sparsely settled districts to deliver the notifications. 

The reluctance with which New England substituted the represent¬ 
ative city government for the direct government of the town meeting 
is further exemplified by the survival of the township and of some of 
its functions after the incorporation of the city. * * * 

These facts are, I think, sufficient to demonstrate the vitality of the 
town meeting as a part of our American system of civil government. 
Here only we find in its perfection a true democracy—the direct man¬ 
agement of affairs by the people themselves. It constitutes, as Mr. 
John Fiske rightly declares, “the most complete democracy in the 
world. It is the most perfect exhibition of what President Lincoln 
called ‘government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’” 
Professor Bryce truly comprehends its significance when he affirms 
that “the town meeting has been the most perfect school of self- 
government in any modern country. ” * * * 

The point which I wish to emphasize is that in copying English cus¬ 
toms in the creation of municipal corporations we not only introduced 
a meaningless and unrepublican distinction of titles—the English 
alderman being originally a representative of the landed aristocracy, 
while the councilman was a representative of the people through the 
guild or trade organization—but we have buried the talent which has 
been productive of so much good in the town-meeting system. We 
have done this by divorcing the people from any direct participation 
in local government and creating a representative body which is 
controlled by no popular statement of fundamental legislative princi¬ 
ples corresponding to the written constitution of the State, and is only 
S. Doc. 340-13 



194 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

amenable to check and restriction through the action of the State 
legislature. Within the limits of their charter privileges—and these 
are also fixed by the legislature, and liable to amendment by the same 
body—our city councils have been practically as irresponsible bodies 
as they were under the old close-corporation system which prevailed 
in England prior to the municipal act of 1835. That they have abused 
their powers goes without saying. Under this system, or want of 
system, municipal rings have flourished, taxpayers have been plun¬ 
dered without let or hindrance, and those enormous municipal debts 
have been created which are the delight of the census statistician and 
the reproach of the advocate of republican institutions. What wonder 
that Professor Bryce declares, and thoughtful students of municipal 
politics in America regretfully repeat, that “there is no denying that 
the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United 
States!” 

There are those, even in our own country, who also declare that the 
government of cities indicates a conspicuous and definitive failure of 
democratic institutions. Our efforts to correct the evils of municipal 
administration have, indeed, largely proceeded upon that tacit assump¬ 
tion. Our reformers have attacked local abuses through the State 
legislature; they have endeavored to check the extravagance of city 
councils by the creation of innumerable commissions, exercising both 
legislative and executive functions, independent of the control of the 
mayor and common council. They have established a metropolitan 
police, responsible to the governor and legislature, instead of to the 
local administration. As a final resort, they have adopted the drastic 
remedy of curtailing the powers of the city council to the uttermost, 
leaving it only a nominal control over the affairs of the municipality, 
and placed almost dictatorial powers in the hands of the mayor. Let us 
admit that the evils of maladministration have been so great that it is 
not wonderful that the citizen and taxpayer has been ready to put 
aside his pride in republican institutions, his belief in the high utility 
and superiority of a “ government of the people, by the people, and 
for the people,” and to applaud this modern tendency to apotheosize 
the “one-man power” in the government of our great cities. The 
city, we are told, is merely a business corporation. The only interest 
of the people is to have its affairs administered on business principles. 
Whatever mode of administration will accomplish this result most 
economically and effectively is the best mode, whether it be by the 
rule of one man or by that of a representative body. 

When a radical friend assailed the venerable Dr. Bartol with the 
statement that “Christianity is a failure,” the Doctor put in a quiet 
demurrer to the effect that it had never been tried. I think that the 
same conclusive reply may be made to those who affirm the failure of 
a government by the people in our great cities. It is not the “gov¬ 
ernment by the people” which has failed, but an irresponsible parlia¬ 
mentary government; an importation from English precedents, instead 
of a legitimate outgrowth of American institutions. What we otight 
to do, it appears to me, is to revert to genuinely American precedents 
and permit the city to take its place in our system as a natural out¬ 
growth of the town meeting, instead of a perverted distortion of that 
popular democratic institution. The true nature of our municipal 
problem has been apprehended by but few recent writers. Mr. Fiske 
clearly defines its character, though he does not suggest the natural 
and effective remedy. “The difficulty [even] in those colonial times,” 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


195 


he says, “was plainly want of adequate self-government, want of 
responsibility on the part of the public servants toward their employ¬ 
ers, the people.” 

How, then, can our buried talent be raised from the dirt and mire 
of municipal corruption and made productive of beneficent results in 
the administration of government in our great cities? Not, manifestly, 
by “attending the primary” of the political party, as we are often 
advised; for good city government can never be assured until it is 
completely divorced from national party politics. 

The natural course of evolutionary development would seem to be, 
when the town becomes too large for the assembling of the voters in a 
single body for effective work, to divide it into sections of convenient 
size for such local assemblies. This we have been practically com¬ 
pelled to do for convenience in voting. First the ward, and now, 
under the Australian ballot, the election district, has become the pri¬ 
mary cell or unit of our political life. Here the voters meet on elec¬ 
tion day and cast their ballots. Here, in the reformed method of 
party organization recently adopted in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, 
and now in process of inauguration in New York, the primary caucus 
of the party meets to choose delegates to a general committee and to 
the nominating convention. These are long and significant steps in 
the right direction. What can follow more naturally than the reinsti¬ 
tution of a council of the whole people in each election district for 
mutual consultation concerning the affairs of the locality, for confer¬ 
ence with their representatives in the legislative body, for individual 
initiative in legislation, and for the practical exercise of the right of 
the referendum, as advocated in the recent political platforms of both 
parties in the State of Massachusetts? 

The referendum, duly recognized by constitutional guaranties, will 
itself constitute an important movement in the direction of a resump¬ 
tion of the right of self-government by the individual voter. It has 
worked well in Switzerland. It has been a conservative rather than 
a revolutionary force in the conduct of affairs. It is especially desira¬ 
ble to give it a fair trial in municipal politics. * * * The repre¬ 

sentative city council would still be required to give unity and con¬ 
sistency to the public business administration of the whole city. 
Subject to the referendum and criticism of the people in the district 
councils, it could properly be intrusted with many powers of which 
recent restrictive legislation has tended to deprive it. Under the 
supervision, and subject to the veto of the people, corrupt jobs would 
be easily exposed, and greater efficiency and economy would be 
introduced into every department of government. The atrophied 
functions of self-government would be developed anew in the voting 
population. Civic pride would grow apace, a higher class of officials 
would be selected, and public virtue would supplant private greed as 
an incentive to perform the duties of citizenship. ‘ ‘ The town meet¬ 
ing,” says Professor Bryce, “has been not only the source but the 
school of democracy.” Restore the town-meeting system in our cities 
and new hope will spring up in the hearts of the lovers of free insti¬ 
tutions the world over. The right of self-government in the local 
community is New England’s buried talent. 


196 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Appendix No. 32. 


[From the Direct Legislation Record, December, 1895, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J. | 

THE DULUTH EXPERIENCE IN MUNICIPAL REFERENDUM. 

In Minnesota cities can not issue bonds or levy taxes beyond a 
certain amount unless submitted to and approved by the people. 

The water supply of the city of Duluth has been owned by a private 
company, and there has been much trouble and friction between it 
and the city officers. About a year ago the question of building or 
buying was submitted to the people, but in a very mixed manner, so 
that the vote was declared illegal. Then the water company offered 
to sell out for $1,856,000. It ended by four propositions being sub¬ 
mitted to the people in September last. The two principal papers 
took opposite sides. The matter was discussed with great fullness 
and energy. Committees were appointed, who reported pro and con. 
The political parties did not takes sides. Men of all parties served 
on the committees. Although the unanswered and apparently well- 
proved charge was made that the plant had not cost the water company 
stockholders a tenth of the amount they asked, the personalities in 
the discussion were few. It was mainly of facts, methods, and policy, 
and was very educational. 

The propositions were: 

First, to issue bonds for $1,856,000 to buy or build a water plant; second, to pur¬ 
chase the existing plant; third, to build; fourth, to issue $850,000 of bonds to build 
extensions to the existing plant, should the second proposition be carried. Tb e first 
and third propositions were carried and the second and fourth defeated, as between 
purchasing the company’s plant and building an independent plant, and the vote 
was a bout 3 to 1 in favor of building. 

The Minneapolis Journal, a paper at a distance and not involved in 
the agitation, said; 

Laboring men and those who believed the bonds of the present water company 
had been bought by local bankers and speculators at a low price, to be paid for in 
city bonds at par should the purchase carry, defeated the purchase issue. 

The Duluth News-Tribune, which favored buying and opposed build¬ 
ing, said: 

It was a quiet election. In some precincts workers were rarities, and in others 
they made no fuss or noise. 

No loud disputes, no fist fights, no bitter words were, as a rule, heard all day. 
The campaign leaders were content to rest on their laurels as stump speakers, and 
the rest of the people were content to sustain their reputations as quiet, orderly 
citizens. 

It said editorially; 

The city, by a decisive majority of the votes cast, has decided to build a plant. 

A good opportunity was presented to secure control of a plant which it could 
operate without increasing municipal expenses. 

Now that it has been decided to build, it is the duty of the city officials to 
exercise the greatest caution. 

The Herald, which opposed buying and favored building, said: 

The day was an especially quiet one. There were few carriages in use by the 
workers, and it appeared as though the rhetoric slingers of both sides had tired 
themselves out at the innumerable meetings which preceded the election. 

It said editorially: 

It was the largest vote ever polled at a special election in Duluth. 

The strong arguments in favor of building an independent plant and against the 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 197 

attempt to foist the company’s plant upon the city at an exorbitant price were 
all-powerful. 

The people have spoken, and the carrying out of their decree now rests with the 
common council. In view of the heavy majority given in favor of building, the 
duty of the council is clear. 

Mayor Lewis said: 

The people have declared what they want by an overwhelming majority, and I 
shall do everything in my power to carry out their wishes. 

Mr. Swordling, of the board of public works, who opposed building, 
said: 

lam for building at once. 

Alderman Harwood said: 

I had thought purchase the wiser plan, but if the people don’t want it, give them 
what they do want without wasting time. 

Four things rarely seen in the votings on men occurred in this vot¬ 
ing on measures: 

1. There was much agitation and education before election, but 
without party spirit or mud slinging. 

2. The election was very quiet and orderly, and there were no 
charges of corruption in it from either side. 

3. The will of the people was definitely and clearly known. 

4. It was promptly acquiesced in by both sides. 

Why not apply this method oftener to municipal politics ? 

SWISS EXPERIENCE WITH MUNICIPAL DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

The Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, has a population of 100,000, 
and the city of Geneva, with its suburbs, about 80,000. One half of 
these are foreigners, among whom are almost all the illiterates, of which 
there are few. The electors on the list for 1895 numbered 12,551. 

The first few sections of the municipal law read as follows: 

Article 1. The action of the municipal councils is subject to the approval of 
the voters of the municipality whenever the referendum is demanded by 1,200 
voters for the city of Geneva or by the fifth part of the total number of voters 
for the three suburban communes and also Carouge, or by the third part for the 
other communes, within thirty days for the city of Geneva and fifteen days for the 
other communes, computed from the date of such action. 

Art. 2. The referendum can not be demanded against the municipal budget in 
its entirety. The only items of the budget subject to its operation are those which 
establish a new revenue or disbursement or which modify the amount of some 
revenue or disbursement of the preceding budget. 

Art. 3. The referendum can not be applied to votes of an exceptionally urgent 
character. The municipal council itself may determine the existence of such 
urgency, subject to the approval of the State. 

Art. 4. Whenever the number of signers is sufficient, the council must submit, 
within twentj 7 days, the matter to the popular vote, and the absolute majority of 
the voters shall decide its adoption or rejection. 

Art. 5. The council of state shall not approve and indorse the action of the 
municipal councils until the time for demanding the referendum has elapsed. In 
any event it shall immediately annul those which are contrary to the laws. 

Then follow the laws relative to the procedure. 

[In order to get at its results, the editor wrote to Philip Janin, a 
well-known citizen of Geneva, asking several questions, and here are 
the answers. ] 

Question. How many votings have you a year on city referenda? 

Answer. In the Canton of Zurich there are two votes a year. The 
voters vote on questions brought forward by the initiative or referen¬ 
dum and elect the councilors at the same time. In several cantons, 
including Geneva, the votes are taken as the questions come up. It 
is probable that before long Geneva will adopt the Zurich plan. 


198 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Question. What sort of questions are voted on? In asking this 
question I thought that there might be some kinds of questions that 
would be rarely, if ever, referred to the people, but the answer shows 
that Mr. Janin did not even think of this. 

Answer. If it is a federal one, the federal government sends to each 
citizen a printed copy of the bill. If it is a cantonal or municipal one, 
then the cantonal or municipal government does this. In each case 
a blank ballot accompanies the bill. At each poling place the voter 
finds ballots printed with an affirmative vote, a negative Vote, and in 
blank. The affirmative and negative ballots are supplied by private 
individuals who are interested for or against. All the ballots are 
nearly identical in form and terms; they only differ in the sjnnbol and 
vote. 

Question. Do the people divide into classes on these referendary 
votings ? 

Answer. As soon as the question is up the party leaders take sides 
and the journals study the question, but very often the partj^ chiefs 
are not followed by the rank and file. There are many defections. 
Many party members vote as they see fit—that is, contrary to orders. 
They consider the measure which is submitted to them for themselves 
and bolt the orders of party leaders whom they would follow blindly 
in the electing of councilors. 

More than once the referendum vote has, for good reasons, destroyed 
those projects which were dearest to the politicians. Councilor Welti 
had to retire from the Federal Council after the overwhelming defeat 
of his railway redemption project—a job put up with some Berlin 
capitalists. 

The vote of March, 1891, upset the dearest hopes of a lot of political 
officeholders. 

Question. Is there any bribery in these referendary votings, even 
indirect in some public expenditure, which will specially benefit some 
class or section ? 

Answer. A recent lawsuit has proved that money plays a part in 
the election of representatives, but up to the present time votings on 
the initiative and referendum have been free from corruption. 

However, money makes itself felt. The legitimate expenses of such 
a vote—postage, copying lists, etc.—amounts to thousands of francs, 
especially in a federal case. A demand for the initiative or referen¬ 
dum may not receive enough signatures for lack of funds, as was 
actually the case with the law creating a federal district attorney. 
The optional referendum, such as we have in federal affairs, and also 
in Geneva, is not easily made use of by the working classes, while a 
rich party can always raise money enough at short notice. 


Appendix No. 33. 

GENERAL OUTLINE OF DIRECT LEGISLATION IN SWITZERLAND. * 1 
[Condensed by George H. Strobel.] 

Evidence as to the practicability and the effects of direct legislation 
is afforded by Switzerland, especially in its history during the past 
twenty-five years. 

There are in Switzerland 22 Cantons (States), which are subdivided 


1 Compiled principally from Direct Legislation, by J. W. Sullivan. Chapters 

1 and 2. 




199 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

into 2,706 communes (townships). The commune is the political as 
well as territorial unit. Commonly, as nearly as consistent with can¬ 
tonal and federal rights, in local affairs the commune governs itself. 
Its citizens regard it as their smaller State. It is jealous of inter¬ 
ference by the greater State. It has its own property to look after. 
Until the interests of the Canton or the Confederation manifestly 
replace those of the immediate locality the commune declines to part 
with the administration of its lands, forests, police, roads, schools, 
churches, or taxes. 

In German Switzerland the adult male inhabitants of the commune 
meet at least once annually, usually in the town market place or on a 
mountain plain, and carry out their functions as citizens. There 
they debate proposed laws, name officers, and discuss affairs of a pub¬ 
lic nature. On such occasions every citizen is a legislator, his voice 
and vote influencing the questions at issue. The right of initiating 
a measure belongs to each. Decision is ordinarily made by show of 
hands. 

Similar democratic legislative meetings govern two Cantons as Can¬ 
tons and two other Cantons divided into demicantons. In the demi- 
canton of Outer Appenzell, 13,500 voters are qualified thus to meet 
and legislate*, and the number actually assembled is sometimes 10,000; 
but this is the highest extreme for such an assemblage—a Landesge- 
meinde (aland community)—the lowest for a Canton or a demicanton 
comprising about 3,000. One other Canton (Schwyz, 50,307 inhabi¬ 
tants) has Landsgemeinde meetings, there being six, with an average 
of 2,000 voters to each. In communal political assemblages, however, 
there are usually but a few hundred voters. 

The yearly cantonal or demicantonal Landsgemeinde takes place on a 
Sunday in April or May. While the powers and duties of the body vary 
somewhat in different Cantons, they usually cover the following sub¬ 
jects : Partial as well as total revision of the constitution; enactment of 
all laws; imposition of direct taxes; incurrence of State debts and alien¬ 
ation of public domains; the granting of public privileges; assumption 
of foreigners into State citizenship; establishment of new offices and 
the regulation of salaries; election of State, executive, and judicial 
officers. 


THE INITIATIVE AND THE REFERENDUM. 

It will be observed that the basic practical principles of both the 
communal meeting and the Landsgemeinde are these two: 

(1) That every citizen shall have the right to propose a measure of 
law to his fellow-citizens, this principle being known as the initiative. 

(2) That the majority shall actually enact the law by voting the 
acceptance or the rejection of the measures proposed. This prin¬ 
ciple, when applied in non-Landsgemeinde Cantons, through ballot- 
ings at polling places, on measures sent from legislative bodies to the 
people, is known as the referendum. 

The initiative has been practiced in many of the communes and in 
the several Landsgemeinde Cantons, in one form or other, from time 
immemorial. In the past score of years, however, it has been prac¬ 
ticed by petition in an increasing number of the Cantons not having 
the democratic assemblage of all the citizens. 

The referendum owes its origin to two sources. One source was in 
the vote taken at the communal meeting and the Landsgemeinde. 
The other source was in the vote taken by the ancient Cantons on any 


200 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


action by their delegates to the federal Diet, or congress, these dele¬ 
gates undertaking no affair except on condition of referring it to the 
cantonal councils—ad referendum. 

The principles of the initiative and referendum have of recent years 
been extended so as to apply, to a greater or lesser extent, not only to 
cantonal affairs in Cantons far too large for the Landsgemeinde, but to 
certain affairs of the Swiss Confederation, comprising 3,000,000 inhabi¬ 
tants. In other words, the Swiss nation to-day sees clearly, first, that 
the democratic system has manifold advantages over the representa¬ 
tive; and, secondly, that no higher degree of political freedom and jus¬ 
tice can be obtained than by granting to the least practicable minority 
the legal right to propose a law and to the majority the right to accept 
or reject it. In enlarging the field of these working principles the 
Swiss have developed in the political world a factor which, so far as 
it is in operation, is creating a revolution to be compared only with 
that caused in the industrial world by the steam engine. 

It is of very recent years that the movement has become steady 
toward the general adoption of the cantonal referendum. In 1860 
but 34 per cent of the Swiss possessed it, 66 per cent delegating their 
sovereign rights to representatives. But in 1870 the referendarship 
had risen to 71 per cent, only 29 submitting to law making officials; 
and to-day the proportions are more than 90 per cent to less than 10. 
The federal referendum began only in 1874. The federal initiative 
was adopted in 1891. The form of cantonal referendum now prac¬ 
ticed was begun (in St. Gall) in 1830, and forty years ago only five 
Cantons had any referendum whatever, and these in the optional 
form. 1 

The extent to which the referendum is applied varies considerably. 
In two Cantons it is applicable only to financial measures; in others it 
is optional with the people, who sometimes demand it, but oftener do 
not; in others it is obligatory in connection with the passage of every law. 
In the Canton of Yaud a mere pseudo-referendary right exists, under 
which the Grand Council (the legislature) may, if it so decides, propose 
a reference to the citizens. Valais takes a popular vote only on such 
propositions passed by the Grand Council as involve a one and a half per 
cent increase in taxation or a total expenditure of 60,000 francs. With 
increasing confidence in the people, the Cantons of Lucerne, Zug, Basel 
City, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Ticino, Neuchatal, and Geneva refer a 
proposed law, after it has passed the Grand Council, to the voters 


Respite a widespread impression to the contrary, the tradition for ages of 
nearly all the present Swiss territory have been of tyranny and not of liberty. In 
most of that territory, in turn, bishop, king, noble, oligarch, and politician gov¬ 
erned, but until the past half century or less, never the masses. Half the area of 
Switzerland, at present containing 40 per cent of the inhabitants, was brought 
into the federation only in the present century. Of this recent accession, Geneva, 
for a brief term part of France, had previously long been a pure oligarchy, and 
more remotely a dictatorship; Neuchatel had been a dependency of the crown of 
Prussia, never, in fact, fully released until 1857; Valais and theGrisons, so-called 
independent confederacies, had been under ecclesiastical rule; Ticino had for 
three centuries been governed as conquered territory, the privilege of ruling over 
it purchased by bailiffs from its conquerors, the ancient Swiss League—“ a harsh 
government,” declares the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “ one of the darkest passages 
of Swiss history.” Of the older Switzerland, Bale, Berne, and Zurich were oli¬ 
garchical cities, each holding in feudality extensive neighboring regions. Not 
until 1833 were the peasants of Bale placed on an equal footing with the towns¬ 
people, and then only after serious disturbances. And the inequalities between 
lord and serf, victor and vanquished, voter and disfranchised, existed in all the 
older States save those now known as the Landsgemeinde Cantons. 



201 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

when a certain proportion of the citizens, usually one-sixth to one- 
fourth, demand it by formal petition. This form is called the optional 
referendum. Employed to its utmost in Zurich, Schwyz, Bern, 
Soleure, Basel Land, Aargau, Thurgau, and the Grisons, in these Can¬ 
tons the referendum permits no law to be passed or expenditure beyond 
a stipulated sum to be made by the legislature without a vote of the 
people. This is known as the obligatory referendum. Glarus, Uri, 
the half cantons of Nidwald and Obwald (Unterwald), and those of 
Outer and Inner Appenzell, as Cantons or demicantons, still practice 
the democratic assemblage—the Landsgemeinde. 1 

In effect, the referendum makes of the entire citizenship a deliber¬ 
ative body in perpetual session—this end being accomplished in 
Zurich in the face of every form of opposing argument. Formerly, 
its adversaries made much of the fact that it was ever calling the 
voters to the urns; but this is now avoided by the semiannual elec¬ 
tions. It was once feared that party tickets would be voted without 
regard to the merits of the various measures submitted; but it has 
been proved beyond doubt that the fate of one proposition has no 
effect whatever on that of another decided at the same time. Zurich 
has pronounced on 91 laws in 28 elections, the votes indicating sur¬ 
prising independence of judgment. When the obligatory form was 
proposed for Zurich, its supporters declared it a sure instrument, but 
that it might prove a costly one they were not prepared by experiment 
to deny. Now, however, they have the data to show that taxes— 
unfailing reflexes of public expenditure—are lower than ever, those 
for police, for example, being only about half those of optional Geneva, 
a less populous Canton. 

To the prophets who foresaw endless partisan strife in case the ref¬ 
erendum was to be called in force on every measure Zurich has replied 
by reducing partisanship to its feeblest point, the people indifferent 
to parties since an honest vote of the whole body of citizens must be 
the final issue of every question. 2 

The people of Zurich have proved that the science of politics is 
simple. By refusing special legislation they evade a flood of bills. 
By deeming appropriations once revised as in most part necessary 
they pay attention chiefly to new items. By establishing principles 
in law they forbid violations. Thus there remain no profound prob¬ 
lems of state, no abstruse questions as to authorities, no conflict as 
to what is law. Word fresh from the people is law. 

SUMMARY. 

To sum up: In Switzerland direct legislation has in many respects 
been established for the Federal Government, while in so large a Can- 


1 Today the movement in the Swiss Cantons is not only toward the referendum, 
but toward its obligatory form. The practice of the optional form has revealed 
defects in it which are inherent. 

2 While both legislators and executives are elected for short terms, it is custom¬ 
ary for the same men to serve in public capacities a long time. Though the people 
may recall their servants at brief intervals, they almost invariably ask them to 
continue in service. Employees keep their places at their will during good behav¬ 
ior. This custom extends to the higher offices filled by appointment. One min¬ 
ister to Paris held the position for twenty-three years, one to Rome for sixteen. 
Once elected to the Federal Executive Council, a public man may regard his office 
as a permanency. Of the Council of 1889 one member had served since 1863, 
another since 1866. Up to 1879 no seat in the Council had ever become vacant 
excepting through death or resignation. 



202 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

ton as Zurich, with nearly 340,000 inhabitants, it has also been made 
applicable to every proposed cantonal law, decree, and order—the 
citizens of that Canton themselves disposing by vote of all questions 
of taxation, public finance, executive acts, State employment, cor¬ 
poration grants, public works, and similar operations of government 
commonly, even in republican states, left to legislators and other 
officials. In every Canton having the initiative and the obligatory 
referendum all power has been stripped from the officials except that 
of a stewardship, which is continually and minutely supervised and 
controlled by the voters. Moreover, it is possible that yet a few 
years and the affairs not only of every Canton in Switzerland, but of 
the Confederation itself will thus be taken in hand at every step. 

Here, then, is evidence incontrovertible that pure democracy, 
through direct legislation by the citizenship, is practicable—more, is 
now practiced—in large communities. 1 


1 In the following statistics the reader may see at a glance the progress of the 
referendum to the present date, with the population of Switzerland by Cantons, 
and the difficulties presented by differences of language, manners, and customs in 
the introduction of reforms: 


Canton. 


Number 
of inhab¬ 
itants, 
Decem¬ 
ber, 1888. 


Language. 


Form of passing laws. 


Year 

of 

entry. 


Zurich .. 

Bern- 

Lucerne 


Schwyz. 

Unter wald: 
Obwald.. 
Nidwald . 

Glarus. 

Zug . 

Freiburg. 

Soleure. 

Basel: 

City. 

Country . 
Schaffhausen 
Appenzell: 
Outer.... 
Inner .... 

St. Gall. 

Grisons. 

Aargau. 

Thurgau. 

Ticino. 

Vaud. 

Valais. 

Neuchatel... 
Geneva . 

Total... 


337,183 
536,679 
135,360 
17,249 
50,307 

15,041 

12,538 

33,825 

23,029 

119,155 

85,621 

73,749 

61,941 

37,783 

54,109 

12,888 

228,160 

94,810 

193,580 

104,678 

126,751 

247,655 

101,985 

108,153 

105,509 


2,917,740 


German. 

German and French 

German ... 

German and Italian 
German. 


Obligatory referendum 

Optional referendum .. 

Landsgemeinde. 

Obligatory referendum 


1351 

1353 

1332 

1291 

1291 


..do .. 

_do. 

_do. 

-do .. 

French and German 
German. 


Landsgemeinde. 

.do. 

.do. 

Optional referendum. 

Legislature.. 

Obligatory referendum 


1291 

1291 

1352 

1352 

1481 

1481 


do 

do 

do 


Optional referendum. 

Obligatory referendum.... 
Optional referendum. 


1501 

1501 

1501 


.do. 

_do. 

_do.. 

German, Italian, Romansch 

German... 

-do... 

Italian. 

French and German. 

— .do. 

French . 

....do. 


Landsgemeinde. 

.do---- 

Optional referendum. 

Obligatory referendum.... 


_do. 

Optional referendum 

... .do. 

Finance referendum. 
Optional referendum 
_do. 


1573 

1573 

1803 

1803 

1803 

1803 

1803 

1803 

1814 

1814 

1814 


In round numbers, 2,092,000 of the Swiss people speak German, 637,000 French, 
156,000 Italian, and 30,000 Romansch. Of the principal cities, in 1837, Zurich, 
with suburbs, had 92,685 inhabitants; Basel, 73,963; Geneva, with suburbs, 73,504: 
Bern, 50,220: Lausanne, 32,954; and five others from 17,000 to 25,000. Fourteen 
per cent of the inhabitants (410,000) live in cities of more than 15,000 The fac¬ 
tory workers number 161,000, representing about half a million inhabitants, and 
the peasant proprietors nearly 260,000, representing almost two millions. The 
area of Switzerland is 15,892 square miles. 






























































































DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


203 


Appendix No. 34. 

[From The Direct Legislation Record, September, 1894, quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

DIRECT LEGISLATION IN SWITZERLAND. 1 

During the past twenty-five years, mainly, an enlightened European 
republic has undergone a political and economic revolution—a revo¬ 
lution which has been peaceful in its processes, unprecedented in its 
methods, and radical in its tendencies. My purpose is to sketch that 
revolution, to describe its broader social effects, and especially to note 
its consequences to the producers of wealth in the country in question; 
and hence its significance to the producers of this country. It may 
be well for me to say at once that in speaking of that country I, at 
every point, deal by inference with this country; that in showing how 
a foreign people have overcome grave public evils, I suggest the rem¬ 
edy for similar mischiefs here; that throughout my argument I rely 
on accomplished facts and nowise on unsupported theory. 

Previous to 1848 each Swiss Canton regarded itself as a nation. The 
only central official body existing—to which each Canton sent one or 
two delegates—was a diet. This diet was not a national congress. It 
was regarded by the Cantons as an international congress or assembly 
of ambassadors. The diet passed no laws. It came to agreements, 
often in earlier times ignored by disaffected Cantons, but later rati¬ 
fied or rejected by a majority of the Cantons. Each Canton, in its sov¬ 
ereign national capacity, independently maintained its own civil and 
military organizations. Costly experiments in welding all the Cantons 
into one country had been made, especially by Napoleon, but up to 
1848 the attempts were unsuccessful. 

In 1848 Switzerland became a confederation. Then, for the first 
time, it adopted a federal constitution, selected a permanent federal 
capital, provided for a federal executive, formed a federal congress, 
organized federal departments, established a federal army, and im¬ 
posed federal taxes. The theretofore loosely coherent sovereign States 
thereby became equal States within a superior State. 

My purpose in this brief review of facts has been to dislodge incor¬ 
rect ideas from the minds of those in the audience who have enter¬ 
tained popular impressions as to Switzerland. Time and again, when 
I have described the revolution Switzerland has undergone within the 
past three decades, some of my hearers, giving my views a qualified 
approval, have gone on to ascribe Switzerland’s present advanced con¬ 
dition to causes aside from the true one. Especially have many, their 
minds reverting to part truths relating to a few of the smallest Can¬ 
tons—not a tenth of all Switzerland—hastened to proffer me their uni¬ 
versal, mechanically applied key to sociology—evolution—with their 
opinions as to the “natural development,” “slow growth,” “favorable 
environment ” of the Swiss democracy. This (shall I call it patter?) 
but little applies to the case in hand. In the evolution of the human 
race all other factors give way before the civilized man’s mind and 
will. Man in the aggregate ever craves a better life. He conceives 
ideals, and, moving toward them, recreates himself and society. The 
political method Switzerland has so recently adopted in nowise depends 
on any special national development there. The method can be suc- 

l A lecture by J. W. Sullivan, delivered in various places during the past three 
years. Statistics are brought down to date. 






204 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


cessfully practiced in any civilized country. Once it is desired by the 
masses in the United States that method can be brought about here— 
at least in town, county, city, and State—much the more speedily than 
it was in Switzerland, since we have the example of that country to 
guide us. 

Admitted that a certain few of the features of Swiss organization 
and tradition favored the spread of pure democracy, what country 
having a general manhood suffrage is lacking in the one essential of 
the purest democracy? None. 

Our bird’s-eye view of Switzerland and of its political composition, 
with our glance at Swiss history, have, then, enabled us to see certain 
large facts and draw certain safe inferences. If the Swiss Govern¬ 
ment of to-day is a well-nigh perfect Republic, the reason is not 
because it is an old Republic. Dating from 1848, it is one of the new¬ 
est. If the present generation of all the Swiss share a sentiment of 
national pride and patriotism, it is not because that sentiment is of 
long standing. Down to 1848 the Cantons were in some cases indif¬ 
ferent to and in others intensely jealous of one another. If the Swiss 
of to-day are averse to bloodshed, it is not because of an inborn gen¬ 
tleness. During hundreds of years not only did Switzerland by choice 
pursue war, but as mercenary soldiers the Swiss killed under any flag, 
and at times even one another, for pay, and as conquerors they were 
ruthless ravagers and despotic masters of serfs. If Switzerland since 
1848 has been peaceful, it is not because a long peace was then 
bequeathed it. For half a century before it had been the seat of inter¬ 
necine strife and political confusion. If at present the nation is not 
racked with religious dissension, it is not because the old elements of 
that dissension have disappeared. The stanch Swiss Protestants 
number more than 1,000,000, the devoted Catholics 1,200,000. The 
war of 1847 was a religious war. If progress in trade, education, and 
political methods is general, it is not because of uniformity of lan¬ 
guage and homogeneity of blood, but in spite of a diversity of unlike 
tongues and of a heterogeneity of race. If the people as a whole now 
possess wealth, it is not because nature yields its products easily nor 
because in the past were laid up treasures for the present, as in Italy. 
Switzerland until recently was proverbially poor. If the Swiss struc¬ 
ture of government is simple, it is not because the living Swiss have 
inertly imitated a fixed ancestral form. On the contrary, they have 
chosen the best of many conflicting local forms. If, in brief, Swiss 
institutions are to-day well settled, it is only during the present gen¬ 
eration that they have become so. The explication of Switzerland’s 
recent progress lies not in its ancient history, not in favorable national 
circumstances, not in the exceptionally high character of the Swiss. 
Neither does it lie in a materialist, planless evolution. It lies solely 
in the supermaterial power exerted through the intelligence and will 
of the civilized man of to-day, whatever the source of his inspiration. 
This power of man all civilized countries have put forth in various 
forms in the domains of industry, commerce, the arts, and many 
sciences. The Swiss have been the first to apply it thoroughly in polit¬ 
ical science. What the Swiss have done the Americans, even the 
workingmen, can do, once they learn how. As the tiller of the soil 
can expect no harvest unless he first clears away the weeds and under¬ 
brush when he is about to plant his crop, so in this matter, taught by 
experience, I recognize the necessity of clarifying of error the mind 
of every honest doubter as well as of forestalling the stock of objec¬ 
tions of every chronic caviller in order to prepare the way for the 
truths which are here my especial concern. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


205 


Like the founders of the American Republic, the framers of the 
Swiss constitution of 1848 were animated by lofty ideals. They were 
just, honorable, liberty-loving, democratic statesmen. Besides, they 
were aware that the ordeal of a vote of all the Cantons awaited their 
constitution when drafted. Hence its leading provisions satisfied the 
requirements of the majority at that time. 

But, precisely as our Government has degenerated, the newly formed 
federal Swiss Government, as well as the long-established qantonal 
governments, were, along in the fifties, made gradually to yield to the 
insidious attacks of those modern masters of their fellow-men, the 
manipulators of political power and the possessors of great wealth. 
How, on realizing their peril, the Swiss speedily reformed their gov¬ 
ernment, takes but few words to tell. They simply applied to Canton 
and Confederation the two working political principles of the commune 
of German Switzerland, these principles being that any citizen of the 
commune might propose any communal law which was to govern him, 
and that all the commune’s citizens might vote on all such proposi¬ 
tions, the majority to decide as to the acceptance or rejection of each 
law. 

The public communal meeting was a feature of the dominant Ger¬ 
man Cantons of the old Swiss league. After the freeing of the tribu¬ 
tary Cantons the communal meeting was, in the early part of this 
century, adopted by them as well. To-day in all of German Switzer¬ 
land (more than two-thirds of the entire country) the citizens of each 
commune meet at least once a year and by vote elect officials and leg¬ 
islate on all matters of local government—on taxes, roads, schools, 
public water and lighting, churches, forests, and public lands. The 
Swiss communal meeting proceeds in the manner of the New England 
town meeting, but covers more objects in its legislation. Several of 
the small Swiss Cantons also legislate as Cantons in public meeting, 
the citizens of the entire Canton (in one case more than 10,000) being 
entitled in this public assembly to voice and vote, to propose and help 
dispose of laws. Another form of the same democratic idea formerly 
prevailed in two of the larger Cantons—one French (Yalais) and one 
Italian (Grisons)—where the communes sent delegates to a central 
cantonal body, which, like the federal diet, passed no laws, but rec¬ 
ommended measures to its constituent communes, which thereupon 
by popular vote accepted or rejected the proposals. These several 
practices suggested to the mind of one reformer and another between 
1834 and 1848 the possibility, first, of causing any or all the bills 
passed by cantonal legislatures to be submitted to the voters, not at 
meetings, but at the polls; and, secondly, of extending to a small pro¬ 
portion of the citizens the right of sending a bill by petition through 
the legislature to a vote at the polls. These two plain, simple ideas 
gradually obtained popular favor. In 1848 five Cantons were practic¬ 
ing them in an experimental form. The vote on a proposed law by the 
citizens at the polls was called the referendum. The proposal of a 
law by petition through the legislature to the citizens was called fche 
initiative. The initiative, be it observed, is not simply a petition. It 
is an imperative order commanding a legislature to submit a projected 
law to a vote of that body of citizens which the law is to govern. The 
initiative and referendum in operation together are called the system 
of direct legislation. It is so called in contradistinction to indirect leg¬ 
islation through representatives. 

Until 1860 the progress of the initiative and referendum in Switzer¬ 
land was slow. In fact, in one of the five Cantons practicing it the 


206 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

referendum was done away with; and in two of the half-dozen smaller 
Cantons the public cantonal legislative meetings were abandoned. 
However, discussion of direct legislation and of its probable effect on 
politician and plutocrat was diligently promoted by social reformers. 
A boon came to these men in 1858. A heavy subsidy then voted to a 
railroad by the legislature of Neuchatel was the determining cause in 
that Canton of the adoption of the referendum. This event was fol¬ 
lowed, ^specially in the German Cantons, by a bold and concerted 
advocacy of pure democracy—direct legislation. This effort, however, 
was met by strenuous objection, especially from politician and monop¬ 
olist; in short, by the ruling classes. The arguments arrayed against 
the referendum in those days—I quote from a Belgian author—“the 
inexperience of the people, their shortsightedness, their capricious¬ 
ness, their passions, their immaturity of intellect, their inability to 
act without the tutelage of leaders. ” Indeed the whole volume of 
talk against direct legislation at that time in Switzerland was an ear¬ 
lier edition of what we have heard from opponents during the last 
year or so in America. Direct legislation for the large Cantons, it 
was said, would prove impracticable, answering well enough in the 
little primitive forest Cantons. The method must break down in the 
grand Canton of Berne, with 500,000 inhabitants. It could, of course, 
never work in federal matters; to hope to apply it there was a vision¬ 
ary dream. It would surely prove reactionary; the people were below 
their representatives in intelligence. It would lead to continual and 
whimsical changes in the law; the uneducated are vaccillating fools. 

It would bring on a religious or a class war; the masses grovel in 
low hatreds. The law would be made tyrannical; the average man is 
a mean tyrant. The voters would adopt any law, however harmful, 
submitted to them; the closely interested would mispersuade them. 
The referendum must (as an American opponent put it recently) inev¬ 
itably lead to abomination after abomination. 

However, heroic measures for dire evils. Direct legislation was at 
length called in by the plain citizens to do a necessary work where 
every other political agency had failed. The masses concluded it were 
vain longer to put faith in parties struggling for the public offices or 
longer to try guessing which candidates might withstand the corrup¬ 
tions of power, and so the masses decided to trust themselves. 

In 1861 the referendum on financial questions was adopted by sev¬ 
eral Cantons, and thus at once were headed off the free-handed official 
dispensers of the public money. Still other Cantons followed this 
lead. In some of the smaller Cantons no appropriation over $10,000 
was thenceforth to be made without a referendary vote, and in Berne, 
the largest Canton, no appropriation over $100,000. In ten Cantons 
this vote on appropriations exceeding a certain sum remains the law 
to the present day. 

But even this financial referendum fell far short of the demands of 
the democrats. In 1863 and a few years following, six of the leading 
Cantons adopted the initiative and the obligatory referendum; that is, 
in these Cantons to any one-twelfth, or even one-sixteenth, of the 
voters was accorded the legal right of introducing any cantonal law 
whatsoever, while the legislature was obliged to send every proposed 
law or appropriation over a fixed sum to a vote at the polls. 

The movement for direct legislation has since gone steadily on. 
To-day more than half the Cantons practice the obligatory referendum; 
these are called the radical Cantons. The rest, except one, have the 
optional referendum, whereby a bill passed by the legislature is sent 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


207 


to the popular vote only in case of petition by a certain proportion of 
the citizens within a stated period after the bill is passed. Fifteen of 
the Cantons have also the initiative;' applied, however, in some of them 
only to constitutional amendments. The Confederation as a whole 
adopted the optional referendum in 1874 and the initiative (on consti¬ 
tutional amendments) in 1891. In the seventeen years from 1875 to 
1894, inclusive, referendary votes were taken on twenty-nine national 
measures. 

Direct legislation in Switzerland, it is thus seen, was in no sense a 
slow growth; it came quickly through man’s deliberate action. True, 
an old tool was put to new uses. But how vast the field of the new 
uses in comparison with the old! Are we to speak of the recent mar¬ 
velous adaptations of electricity as the result of ages of development 
because Pliny knew the magnet and Franklin flew his kite? No. And 
just as the Swiss have within a few years past adopted Edison’s inven¬ 
tions may this country within a few years to come take up with Switz¬ 
erland’s developments of the ballot. 

It is now less than thirty years since direct legislation began to have 
any general effect in the Swiss Cantons. It is not twenty years since 
the federal referendum was adopted. The system has passed its rudi¬ 
mentary stage; it is far from its perfect form. But if we pass in review 
the salient political and economic characteristics of the Switzerland of 
to-day we shall plainly see that the great turning point of Swiss his¬ 
tory has been passed only during the present generation. Only since 
she has practiced direct legislation have been developed the most 
striking of Switzerland’s political methods, especially the processes 
which in that country have intercepted the parallel growth of pauper¬ 
ism and plutocracy which is taking place elsewhere throughout the 
commercial world. 

First in observing the effects of direct legislation in Switzerland, our 
attention is drawn to improvements in the structure and administra¬ 
tion of the government, local and general. 

We have referred to the proceedings of the communal meeting. At 
this meeting are made the governmental arrangements of a neighbor¬ 
hood—made by all the communes’ citizens; the persons most intimate 
with local affairs and the natural guardians of local interests. 

There, before the whole town assembled, the discontented make 
their protests to sympathetic ears; there the progressive introduce 
new ideas; there the suspicious call for more light on official ways; 
there is regulated nearly every political matter falling within the 
daily experiences of all the people. Whatever sum of public good is 
to be achieved through publicity, a close common interest, a general 
desire for fair play, a neighborly good will, a widespread education 
in political affairs, the ambition of each man to stand well in his own 
community—all this is inevitably obtained through the communal 
meeting. This meeting, as I have explained, is ancient in a few 
German Cantons, but is of the present century in others, and is to-day 
spreading in Italian and French Switzerland, just as the New England 
town meeting has for the twenty years past been spreading in Illinois, 
Wisconsin, Nebraska, and other Western States. 

As to the Cantons: Zurich has for twenty years been the model for 
the Cantons having the initiative and the obligatory referendum. 
Zurich, a State with 340,000 inhabitants, has a legislature which is 
nothing more than a committee without power. This legislature has 
no senate. The one house has 300 members. This house meets for 
a two weeks’ session twice a year or oftener. The chamber rarely 
8. Doc 26 -40 


208 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


listens to a set speech; it never hears buncombe; it never sees a 
lobbyist. The body prints no record. It knows nothing of bribery. 
It can not vote a privilege to a corporation. Its committees gull no 
petitioners. Its members do not toss into the lawmaking hopper 
bales of sham bills. They simply attend to public business. Why 
all this? Because the middleman in lawmaking has in Zurich been 
bereft of his privileges—because sovereignty rests directly with 
Zurich’s citizens themselves. 

Impressive have been the consequences. There is not a sinecure 
public office in Zurich; the popular vote has cut down the number of 
officials to the minimum, and their pay to the lowest possible decent 
farthing. There are no vestiges remaining of the public extrava¬ 
gance, the confusion of laws, the partisan feeling, the personal cam¬ 
paigns, characteristic of representative governments. 

In voting and in lawmaking every facility is given to the citizens 
of Zurich. For example: In voting, any citizen may deposit at the 
polls not only his own vote, but by card those of two other citizens. 
In lawmaking, if a single citizen of Zurich places the draft of a 
measure before the legislature, and it there receives the support of 
one-third the members, it must be treated as the initiative and go to 
the citizens for a vote. To give the working people a sure chance to 
vote, all elections in Switzerland take place on Sunday. 

When men of Zurich, now but middle-aged, were young men, its 
legislature practiced vices similar to those of American legislatures, 
the Canton supported many idling functionaries, and the citizens 
were ordinarily but voting machines, registering the will of the polit¬ 
ical bosses. Wrote a Zurich man to me: “Regularly, after every 
election, the officeholders beheaded the people.” In those days the 
officeholding classes and the bankers, lawj^ers, and monopolists ran 
the law for themselves. Direct legislation—the effectual will of the 
people—has since worked the change. Zurich, politically, looks far 
downward and far backward at every American State somewhat in 
pity and somewhat in contempt, as we do at the South American 
Republics which are feebly struggling toward liberty. 

Pass we now on this point of government structure and administra¬ 
tion to general statements. 

There is not one law made in Switzerland to a hundred in America. 
The commune withholds its own powers from the Canton, the Canton 
its own from the Confederation. Power is thus localized, not cen¬ 
tralized. In the twenty years from 1869 to 1888 the legislature of 
Berne passed but 68 laws. All went to the referendum; 50 being 
accepted and 18 rejected. In the twenty years from 1870 to 1891 the 
legislature of Soleure passed but 66 measures; 51 being adopted at 
the polls and 15 rejected. In the seventeen years from 1875 to 1891 
the congress of the Confederation passed 141 laws and 8 amendments 
to the constitution. The necessary petition, signed by 30,000 or more 
voters, called 19 of the laws to the referendum, while under the con¬ 
stitution votes also took place on the 8 amendments. Of these 27 
federal propositions thus voted on, 15 were rejected and 12 accepted. 

There is, then, local self-government in Switzerland to an extent 
unknown in this country. As men tenaciously cling to rights once 
acquired, centralization is little feared in Switzerland. 

There is a better show given minorities in Switzerland than else¬ 
where in the world. The initiative itself is effective minority repre¬ 
sentation, since, for example, in Geneva 2,500 of the 20,000 voters 
may introduce any law whatsoever. Besides, following direct legis- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 209 

lation, proportional representation was in 1892 introduced into three 
Cantons. 

There is in Switzerland perfect clearness as to every issue before 
the public. The referendary vote is yes or no on a definite, concrete 
question. Hence men are of little importance. Hence a shrinkage 
in the stature of the heroes of party and newspaper. Hence, too, a 
rapid disposal successively of the public issues so complicated in 
America. Hence a general knowledge that government is after all 
a simple affair, and not the profound science that the governing few 
in monarchical and representative countries would make it out to be. 

Not yet leaving the phase of structure and administration, we now 
touch on laws and methods somewhat affected by ancient usage, or 
established by the constitution of 1848, and yet closely governed 
to-day by direct legislation and through it constantly subjected to 
improvement. 

There is no one-man power in Switzerland—no mayor to a city, no 
governor to a Canton, no president, in our sense, to the Confedera¬ 
tion—the executives are councils of five, seven, nine members. No 
executive has the power to veto; only the people have that power. 
No Canton has a senate. There is no general to the army in time of 
peace. There is no standing army in the field, though there is an 
armed and well-equipped militia. There are no officeholders inde¬ 
pendent of their constituents; terms of office are brief, commonly 
one year, hence no need of the imperative recall. There are no offi¬ 
cials with high salaries; while attending sessions, congressmen get 
$4 a day, members of legislatures, 60 cents to $1.20. The president 
of the Swiss Federal Executive Council gets but $2,700 a year. He 
is elected by the council for one year, and can not succeed himself. 
He has no rank in the army, no power of appointment outside the 
council, none of removal. Hence, from the facts just cited, Switzer¬ 
land has no “greatest statesman the world ever saw;” no society 
saviors running for the mayoralty of ring-ridden cities; no cabinet 
crises; no purchase of executive vetoes, no aristocracy of army officers, 
no menace of militarism, no cabals within political parties plotting 
mutual destruction, and in the radical Cantons no machines run with 
public money, and no professional politicians living on the machine. 

So often within the past few years have I related these facts in pri¬ 
vate that at this point I halt for a question almost sure to be put by 
one or other of my hearers. The question, indicating man’s care for 
himself, comes in one of two forms. The questioner has grown impa¬ 
tient. His mind has leaped beyond this stage of my message to him. 
He takes little account of the fact that I have been describing to him 
the simplest, the least expensive, and the most logical form of demo¬ 
cratic government organization any society has ever seen—a priceless 
boon to the living Swiss, an unparalleled heritage for their descend¬ 
ants—and he pitches forward upon either the anxious thought which 
haunts the rich man’s mind or the alluring thought which ever plays 
with the poor man’s fancy. If my questioner has wealth, or if his 
sympathies lie with the wealthy classes, he asks: “Well, have the 
Swiss masses confiscated property?” If my questioner is a discon¬ 
tented wageworker, he asks, with an air implying that the idea has 
been utterly foreign to my inquiry: “ Well, what good has it all done— 
has it abolished poverty?” 

My next set of statements answers these two questions. First, how¬ 
ever, I ask my wealthy questioner to remember that a legal transfer 
S. Doc. *340-14 



210 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


of wealth from class to class has never by his class been regarded as 
confiscatory, and that legal regulations by which certain industries 
have been suppressed (and men’s talents thus confiscated) have in 
America always secured respectful obedience. Witness prohibitory 
taxation—the 10 per cent bank tax, the taxon oleomargarine, and the 
protective tariff. And I ask my friend who represents poverty to 
remember that nearly all we see of poverty is relative. Absolute pov¬ 
erty—utter destitution of possessions and available resources—is seen, 
if even there, only in pauperism. Outside that condition, deprivation 
has many degrees. Man may be poor in mind (ignorant or otherwise 
mentally incompetent) and in body (ill fed, ill clothed, ill housed!, 
and in spirit (dependent on others, incapable of business initiative). 
One’s standard of comfort, too, affects his feeling of poverty; to one 
man a dollar dinner is poverty; to another a 50-cent dinner is a lux¬ 
ury. Besides, what more can a nonpaternal government do than to 
establish the just conditions in which men may produce wealth? It 
can never compel men to keep their property; it can never insure men 
against their own unthrift. With these considerations in mind we 
may now proceed with some examination of the economic situation in 
Switzerland, having a care to mark off what is due to direct legislation 
and what to causes more ancient. 

The most significant economic change occuring in Switzerland 
through direct legislation has been in taxation. In the radical Can¬ 
tons, comprising fully half the population, indirect cantonal taxes 
have been made to give way to direct. When, as most of ray hearers 
may know, taxes, instead of being imposed in a way in which they 
are not transferable—for example, on the sources of monopoly—are 
imposed on commodities, products which are bought and sold, they 
are indirect. Indirect taxes are transferable from the person first 
paying them, together with average interest and profits on the sum 
paid to the consumer, who pays them in the price of the com¬ 
modities. The masses consume the great bulk of commodities, and 
thus, as a rule, have the masses everywhere been obliged finally to 
pay the taxes on any given quantity of goods consumed, plus interest 
and profits on more capital than would otherwise be necessary in 
bringing the goods to the consumer’s hands. In some countries what 
a man thus pays indirectly, but unavoidably, and also frequently 
unaware, amounts to a third of his entire earnings. This trick of 
the tax imposer was a century ago styled by Turgot, the French 
statesman, “ plucking the goose without making it cackle.” But in 
Switzerland the trick of indirect taxation has been detected by the 
goose—the average man—and consequently in the radical Cantons 
the latter has abolished his tax exploiter to the extent of substituting 
direct and nontransferable for indirect and transferable taxation. 
Hence, in several of the radical Cantons the well-to-do and the rich 
now pay almost all the taxes. In Zurich, where fifty years ago all 
taxes were indirect, to-day 32 of every 34 francs are raised by direct 
taxation. There the poorest laborer thus pays in taxes 2 per cent of 
his wages; the well-paid clerk, 5 per cent of his salary; the business 
man worth $50,000, 10 per cent of his net profits, and the capitalist 
worth half a million, 25 per cent of his income. The laborer is in 
this respect better off than formerly by 15 to 30 per cent of his earn¬ 
ings, the clerk by 10 to 20 per cent; the prosperous business man 
rests about where he was, while the large capitalist restores to the 
estate a goodly share of what he formerly kept and what he does not 
earn. The aggregate sum of the taxes is diminished. In the radical 


211 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Cantons the main objects of direct taxation are inheritances, incomes, 
and real estate, the taxes being graduated. In the Canton of Vaud 
the graduated tax on capital and land has been made so heavy as to 
drive out several millionaires—a fact widely advertised throughout 
Europe, and recently in America, to the detriment of the Vaud radi¬ 
cals. However, the millionaires left their real estate in Vaud, taxed 
enough to discourage holding land idle. Within the past decade all 
the Swiss cities have abolished the octroi, a revenue tariff imposed 
by a municipality on certain classes of commodities coming within 
its limits, a tax which hinders production by the farming poor and 
raises prices on the city poor. The octroi is common in southern 
Europe; all the large Italian cities have it; so has Paris. The Swiss 
Confederation has a national customs tariff, but by the constitution 
of 1874 this tax must be imposed on articles of luxury rather than 
on those of necessity or on raw materials. Thus all Switzerland now 
enjoys the inestimable benefit of almost complete free trade within 
her boundaries. She exempts her poor from the heavier burdens 
of the tariff, and certain of her Cantons lead the world in employ¬ 
ing taxation to equalize economic conditions. To one whose atten¬ 
tion has not been directed to the science of taxation these statements 
may be quite meaningless; but to those who know that the incidence 
of taxation may entail glaring injustice, with ruin to industries and 
well-nigh unsupportable burdens to the poor, the statement must be 
pregnant with suggestion. And if questions of taxation are not 
understood by the average man of New York, he will be convinced 
of the educational power of direct legislation, inasmuch as the aver¬ 
age man of Zurich is in this respect so greatly his superior. 

Next to the changes in the methods of taxation, the most important 
are those which denote a tendency of the government, local and gen¬ 
eral, to control directly all the country’s methods of communication 
from place to place, and all the industries requiring in their operation 
a fixed and permanent occupancy of the highways. The Swjss post- 
office department, besides carrying the mail, manages the telegraph, 
telephone, the parcels, express-business, and the conveyance of passen¬ 
gers by stage; it also regulates and closely supervises, though it does 
not own and manage, the railways. Observe here the logic of Swiss 
fact and theory. Highways must inevitably, as even that extreme 
individualist, Mr. Auberon Herbert, concedes, be established and 
maintained by the community. A government, for its own self- 
preservation, must command the arteries of the country’s communi¬ 
cation—the roads and the mails—and no government has yet learned 
how to leave its mail carrying to private interests and yet retain that 
command. Switzerland, in extending its daily mail service to every 
rural district, set up hundreds of postal stage lines. Hence a passen¬ 
ger service included. Hence, also, a federal supervision of highways. 
Hence, too, governmental provisions regulating the iron highways— 
the railways. Next, the telegraph and telephone, besides occupying 
highway space, perform mail services. As to the express business, 
who can mark precisely the line where mail leaves off and goods trans¬ 
portation begins? Thus has Swiss argumentation led to government 
control of the public businesses embraced in its post-office system; a 
system, be it observed, not, as in Germany, part of a vast bureaucracy, 
but separate in its organization, and not unwieldy. 

The result has been the cheapest, the speediest, the most thorough, 
in all respects the most satisfactory, performance of every one of the 
businesses engaged in that the world has ever seen. Not only that, 


212 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


but a profit of quarter to half a million dollars a year. I can offer 
some details. Swiss highways are famous for being well made and 
well kept. Said a correspondent of a weekly Washington paper, a 
few months ago: ‘ c Our Swiss highroad over the Alps, on which we 
journeyed fourteen hours, was equal to the smooth driveways of Cen¬ 
tral Park.” This is not, indeed, much of an exaggeration. And there 
are scores of such Alpine highways. The stage lines are essential to 
the twice-a-day house-to-house express and mail delivery in every 
commune. Seats go to stage passengers in the order of the purchase 
of tickets, and to every traveler who buys a ticket transportation on 
schedule time must be furnished. Local letter postage in Switzerland 
is 1 cent; general, 2; book, half a pound, 1 cent; newspaper, average, 
two-fifths of a cent; express matter at corresponding rates. A tele¬ 
gram to any point in Switzerland costs 6 cents for a stamp and a cent 
for every two words. The telephone is connected with the telegraph, 
with 2 cents charge for transferral of a message. The American con¬ 
sul at St. Gall reported officially, May 5, 1892: “The Swiss telephone 
service is better and rates are lower than elsewhere in the world.” 
The third year brings a subscriber’s annual payment down to $16; in 
New York City it is $240. Eight hundred calls a year are allowed 
subscribers; calls beyond that number cost 1 cent each. The country 
has telephones everywhere; in 1886 Zurich had 1 to every 40 inhabit¬ 
ants. Switzerland has more miles of railway in proportion to area 
than any other country in Europe; its outlay per capita for railways 
has been greater than that of any other country on the Continent; its 
numerous costly railway tunnels, bridges, and embankments are mar¬ 
vels of engineering; yet passenger rates in Switzerland are only a 
shade more than those of the German system, the lowest in Europe. 
In Switzerland, however, all trains, even the fastest, must run third- 
class cars—rarely elsewhere in Europe the case. The Swiss Govern¬ 
ment gives no charters to parallel railway lines (thus preventing 
great waste of capital in construction and a form of wrecking com¬ 
panies) ; revises time-tables and rate schedules (thus preventing dis¬ 
criminations in charges). German Switzerland is the only part of 
Europe where the passenger cars are regularly of the superior Ameri- , 
can pattern. But time and space do not permit me to go on detailing 
the numerous advantages of the work done by (or under the super¬ 
vision of) the Swiss post-office department. I must dismiss the sub¬ 
ject with no further reference to it except to mention the low cost of 
service, owing to the combination of many departments in one under 
a single superintendency; to the steadiness of rates and promptness 
of performance, owing to a permanency of management and a high 
state of discipline of employees, who depend for advancement on their 
own efforts, and to the numerous facilities and the careful foresight 
which provide for the comfort and convenience of the traveling and 
trading public—a constant source of surprise to the American. Yet 
previous to 1848 every Swiss Canton had its own slow, dear, and dis¬ 
jointed postal system. 

Observe at this point, my questioner from the wealthy class, that 
by placing under government control the highway in all its forms, 
and the means of communication from place to place, the latter essen¬ 
tial, in present international conditions, to the life of the state, 
Switzerland has confiscated nothing from your class. It has at once 
preserved in an important respect the liberty of property to the masses, 
protecting them from being plundered by legalized private monop- 


213 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC 

olists, and relieved your class from the harassing responsibility of 
such great fortunes as in America Providence has placed in the hands 
of the philanthropic custodians of similar monopolies. 

And observe, my questioner from the poor class, that to the extent 
to which Switzerland permits the patrons of the state-contolled 
monopolies in question to keep the money in their own pockets which 
under private monopoly would, through charging all the traffic 
could bear, be taken out of them, Switzerland’s system abolishes just 
so much poverty on the part of those patrons. And please keep in 
mind this principle of permitting men to retain the products of their 
own labor through the State regulation of highways and mail and 
through just taxation, and observe how direct legislation is working 
toward the increased liberty of the individual and toward the right 
of free access to the soil, while I proceed to draw in broad lines cer¬ 
tain significant comparisons between Switzerland and other countries. 

There is in Switzerland more wealth exchanged per head than in 
any other country on the European continent. This statement, from 
Mulhall, the English statistican, tells volumes as to a general distri¬ 
bution of food and clothing, and implies a check to private monopoly 
and an economic equality among large classes. It is an extraordinary 
fact that the 3,000,000 Swiss consume as much wealth as 15,000,000 
Italians—that is, one Swiss eats five times the variety, if not the 
quantity, drinks five times the value, reads five times the books, 
travels five times the distance, wears five times the clothes that his 
Italian neighbor does. 

There is in Switzerland more manufacturing without the production 
of raw materials than in any similar area on the Continent—cotton, 
silk, and iron goods without any Swiss raw cotton or silk, and with 
but little good ore. Next to the largest chocolate factory in Europe 
is in Neuchatel, with not one ingredient provided by Switzerland. 
These facts imply labor and wages for the working classes. 

There is in Switzerland more voluntary cooperation than perhaps 
elsewhere on earth—cooperative farming, distribution on the Roch¬ 
dale system, insurance, etc. Kropotkine tells us that the peasant on 
the shores of Lake Geneva is frequently a member of half a dozen 
societies for different cooperative purposes. These facts imply the 
self-development of men. 

There is more immigration to Switzerland, proportionately, than 
into any other country of Europe—a clear indication that wages are 
higher and work more plentiful there than in surrounding countries. 
More than half the wage workers of Geneva are foreigners. The house¬ 
hold help of French Switzerland are frequently girls from Savoy, 
France. The rougher work in several of the Cantons is done by 
Italians, who every spring by thousands walk northward over the 
Alps into Switzerland, returning home in the fall. Were Switzerland 
not in the midst of a population of hundreds of millions, much of its 
mobile labor, overwhelming the Swiss propertyless working people 
by an enforced competition, what might not wages in Switzerland 
be, poor as it naturally is? As to what small emigration there is from 
Switzerland, much of it is on the part of fairly educated men of some 
small means, bound for a career in new countries, where their train¬ 
ing, character, and little capital—endowments they owe to Switzer¬ 
land—may start them well up the ladder leading to success. 

There is in Switzerland as little illiteracy as in any other country. 
Swiss statistics give absolutely less than any other country. Public 


214 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


instruction is required by the constitution of 1874 to be sufficient, 
obligatory, gratuitous, unsectarian, and under control of the state. 
Every Swiss child is heir to the intellectual riches of the ages. 

There are in Switzerland more high-class educational insttiutions 
than in any equal population elsewhere—more universities, colleges, 
and free technical and special schools. 

There are in Switzerland more periodical newspapers and maga¬ 
zines, proportionately, than in any other country in the world. 
Within the past few years Switzerland has left the United States 
second in the list, without the aid of stereotype plates and patent out¬ 
sides. In 1881 Switzerland had 562 periodicals; in 1891, 812—an 
increase in the decade of nearly 50 per cent. 

There are in Switzerland more citizens who intimately know their 
political rights, and who thoroughly debate government methods and 
other current public issues, than in any other republic. This is 
unquestionably so, with the newspapers busy discussing measures 
rather than candidates, with every issue made through the voting 
distinct from all other issues, and with every man a legislator. 

There are in Switzerland districts in which more men run away 
from office than can be got to run for office. While the emoluments 
of place are scanty, the responsibilities are exacting, and many a 
good man, nominated against his will, pleads with his neighbors that 
he has already performed his share of public labor and that his 
family’s needs require his full time. 

There is in Switzerland, more than in any other country, that which, 
despite all disintegrating forces, natural or social, unites the people 
as one family. It is the sense of certainty that the masses stand in 
support of every law, that law being their own word, straight from 
them, as given at the polls. 

There is in Switzerland more political power in the hands of organ¬ 
ized labor than under any other government. Organized labor pushed 
the factory laws into execution, gave rise to an efficient bureau of 
labor, and through the union membership holds the readiest practica¬ 
ble road to the initiative and the optional referendum. 

There is in Switzerland a more effective right of asylum than else¬ 
where on the Continent. This, indeed, is one of Switzerland’s ancient 
glories, well lived up to. In 1838 France demanded of Switzerland 
the expulsion of the then dangerous adventurer, Louis Napoleon, 
and was refused. In 1893 Germany demanded the surrender of Kas- 
sert (the German who at Nuremberg called the Emperor a one-armed 
fool), and was refused. At Lausanne is a colony of Anarchists, refu¬ 
gees from all quarters of Europe; in Zurich, one of German-Socialists, 
political exiles; in Geneva, one of Russian Nihilists. 

There has been in Switzerland a freer right of assembly for radical 
social reformers than in any other country of Europe. In 1869 a con¬ 
gress of the Internationals met in Switzerland because it dared meet 
nowhere else. Three years ago a congress of Italian Anarchists took 
place at Capolago, Ticino, since to meet in Italy were to risk jail. 
The Internationals incorporated in their platform of 1869 a demand 
for the initiative and referendum, a demand repeated by the German 
Socialists in their Gotha resolutions in 1875 and restated in the pro¬ 
gramme of Erfurtli in 1892. 

All of the political and economic factors I have just mentioned 
have been almost wholly developed in Switzerland since the era of 
direct legislation, the people year by year voting on questions of 
progress one after another—questions which in our legislatures give 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 215 

place to partisan or false issues and to the interests of the officeholder 
or the monopolist. 

And now another series of broad lines in our picture: 

There is in Switzerland the most complete hotel system in the world. 
The hotels number 1,200, many being among the finest in Europe. 
Baedeker’s guidebook asserts that there is not one bad hotel in 
Switzerland. Lest I be reminded that direct legislation did not bring 
to Switzerland that which attracts the visitors who during the summer 
fill its hotels—its natural scenery—I hasten to explain that the Swiss 
Government, by its highway, railway, stage, and telegraph systems, 
makes its many hotels possible, these in turn affording a market to its 
farmers. Through the Swiss Government, the man of affairs, Euro¬ 
pean or American, wishing while on his vacation to enjoy the pictur¬ 
esque, uninterrupted communication with home, and good living and 
wholly civilized surroundings, finds in Switzerland all these require¬ 
ments. Switzerland competes for the tourist trade with surrounding 
mountain countries in which climate and scenery are as inviting as 
Switzerland’s. And the little Republic leaves its competitors defeated 
because of its wise and just government aid. 

There are in Switzerland more great permanent public works of 
various kinds—paved canals to carry off mountain freshets, great 
dikes to prevent overflows in the deep valleys, mountain highroad 
tunnels, vast embankments and terraces—than the traveler is accus¬ 
tomed to see in other lands. Signs, these, of a public forethought and 
a social welfare widely participated in. 

There are in Switzerland more beautiful, thriving cities, more clean 
villages, more well-kept small farms, than in any other like area of 
Europe—this while every city has its poor quarter; but shops, resi¬ 
dences, and public buildings everywhere argue by their appearance 
a general energy and a national prosperity. 

There is in Switzerland less public debt than in any other country 
of Europe. Comparatively few of the communes have any debt; a 
number of the Cantons are out of debt, some having funds invested in 
railroads and otherwise. The debt of the Confederation, not quite 
$13,000,000, is $7,000,000 less than its assets. 

There are in Switzerland literally hundreds of rural communes in 
which dependent poverty, as seen in pauperism, in poorhouses, is 
unknown. On the other hand, the well-to-do men of the commune 
may be worth perhaps only a few modest thousands. In such com¬ 
munes public land in some form largely, if not wholly, pays local 
public expenses and provides for the poor as their right, without 
entailing the disadvantages and humiliations of almsgiving. 

There is in Switzerland every facility for cheap and speedy land 
transfer. Ko primogeniture, no entails, no manorial rights, no cus¬ 
tomary tenures, no copyhold deeds, no ninety-nine-year leases, no 
irredeemable rents, no heavy conveyance fees—these are among the 
features of the Swiss land system. 

There is in Switzerland a better division of the agricultural land 
than in any other country in Europe. With 600,000 voters, Switzer¬ 
land has 260,000 agricultural landowners, representing nearly half the 
population. The average size of the farms is 21 acres. Division of 
land is secured by the inheritance laws, a method of giving free access 
to land to a large percentage of each generation, thereby reducing the 
number of the propertyless. 

Compare this with the situation in Scotland, where 200 men own 
more than two-thirds of the land, and not four men in a hundred share 


216 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


in its ownership. Compare the Swiss landowning farmer with the 
Swiss landless farmer. The Swiss is sure of his home; sure, too, of 
employment on his never-failing nature plant for production; he is 
knit to his own acres; he has a free market for his produce, and is 
quite exempt from the exactions of monopolists. Whatever he raises 
is his. The Scotch tenant farmer, on the other hand, is never sure of 
his employment, because he has no right in the acres which his fathers 
tilled and their fathers died to defend. He is rent racked and sub¬ 
ject to the system of eviction which year by year is depopulating 
Scotland. 

The Swiss landholding farmer’s wages (his crops entire) are obvi¬ 
ously double the Scotch landless farmer’s wages (his crops, minus a 
rack rent, indirect taxes, and monopolist exactions). The Swiss, mas¬ 
ter of his acres, is master of himself; the Scotchman is master in noth¬ 
ing and of nothing, not even himself. The Swiss owes his good 
fortune to Switzerland’s form of land tenure, a feature of its political 
system which is fast moving toward justice. The Scotchman, person¬ 
ally equal to the best man on earth, owes his dire poverty to Scotland’s 
form of land tenure, a product of an infamous political system which 
ought to die. In other words, through approximately just political 
processes, wages for nearly 50 per cent of the Swiss are double and 
treble common wages in Scotland, measured in material wealth, while 
in point of all that is signified by the word “liberty” these property¬ 
holding Swiss are immeasurably better off than the Scotch farmers. 
This is a fact of far-reaching significance. If inheritance in the land 
and a simple, inexpensive, antimonopolist government have given 
Swiss farmers quadruple the wages of Scotch agricultural laborers, 
why would not some inheritance in the land, under the same govern¬ 
ment, double the wages for the propertyless Swiss? And, further, 
why should not the same processes double wages in America, where 
wages, with the free land in the West, were once double the wages in 
Europe ? 

There are in Switzerland, as a matter of fact, more people enjoying 
the usufruct of public land than in any other civilized country. In 
all the half dozen smaller Cantons a large proportion of the land—in 
one Canton, Uri, a half of all the land—descends, generation by gen¬ 
eration, to the citizens in common. In these Cantons full citizenship 
alone guarantees a man free access to land, a house site up to an 
acre or so of a garden patch, runs in the Alps for several head of cat¬ 
tle, so many cords of wood yearly—some or all of these rights, accord¬ 
ing to locality, accruing to each citizen. If it be said that these 
customs prevailed long before the day of direct legislation, the reply 
is that the assertion is incorrect; in the half dozen small Cantons 
cantonal legislation has been direct, at the public meeting, from time 
immemorial, concurrently with the free public-land system. More¬ 
over, across the Rhine, in Baden, through a method of indirect voting 
which restricts the suffrage, the public-land system and other demo¬ 
cratic usages are disappearing. 

Is not the flourishing condition of Switzerland, with its continual 
progress to a higher state of justice, an undeniable example of what 
may in all civilized lands be expected to follow the practice of the 
initiative and referendum? In these true and fundamental demo¬ 
cratic principles lies, if not the source of all, the present safety of all 
Switzerland’s many model institutions, and the promise of other insti¬ 
tutions even more enlightened. Of these principles in practice one 
can say: There is at work in Switzerland the one political mechanism 


217 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

which permits each citizen to exert his influence on every act or pro¬ 
posed act of the Government. This is what, emphatically, can not be 
said of the United States. This mechanism, hence, reflects man on 
the average as he has been developed in Switzerland. It shows this 
average man to be less unfair and more progressive than any class or 
clique of rulers or representatives; but especially this mechanism at 
once opens the way, through the initiative, for the introduction of 
any national political innovation deemed desirable by any one man 
in twelve, and unfailingly and immediately registers, through the 
referendum, the highest plane of justice attainable on the convictions 
of the majority. 

Has the trend of Switzerland under direct legislation been toward 
socialism? The reply, it seems to me, depends on the meaning one 
attaches to the word “socialism.” If by socialism is meant state reg¬ 
ulation for the purpose of establishing equality in the opportunities 
afforded by the land, the reply must be yes. If by socialism is meant 
extension of state interference in what are commonly regarded as 
personal rights, together with state-directed compulsory cooperative 
working of naturalized land and state-directed compulsory coopera¬ 
tion of industries (which are the aims striven for by the Social Dem¬ 
ocrats of Germany), the reply—in my judgment, which is, of course, 
subject to error—is no. 

Toward state regulation to establish equality in economic opportu¬ 
nity there has of recent years been an advancing tendency. This 
was the case when it was proposed that Switzerland’s water powers 
should be nationalized, when the telegraph and telephone and a large 
part of the forests were nationalized, when the issue of paper cur¬ 
rency was taken from private monopoly and made a state monopoly, 
when state control of posting by stage-coach was established, and 
when municipal monopolies in general passed into the hands of the 
municipalities. 

But of evolution toward a cooperative commonwealth, as imagined 
by Karl Marx, I am able to discern very little evidence in Switzerland. 
In the case of the railroads, the vote against state ownership—more 
than two or one—indicated a disposition to weaken rather than to 
strengthen state authority, despite general socialistic tendencies in 
Europe. In the case of proposed compulsory vaccination, question¬ 
able state-directed sanitation was refused. In other cases of per¬ 
sonal rights—of marriage, of assembly, of public discussion, ©f exemp¬ 
tion from monopoly—the Swiss enjoy the highest freedom known to 
Europe. In the case of patents, private initiative and private talent 
were insured their own reward under competition. 

In the case of the alcohol monopoly, questions of revenue and of 
morality, rather than of State cooperation, led to the State monopoly. 
In the case of life insurance, the problem was pauperism, not a new 
province for State care. In the matter of pensions, the State was 
warned off. In the case of the factory acts, the aim was protection 
to the helpless classes of society. With this latter exception, Switz¬ 
erland contemplates free industry and commerce in all forms of pro¬ 
duction not requiring monopolies of land, and not directly connected 
with the liquor, currency, pauper, and mail-carrying problems. In no¬ 
wise has Switzerland taken up with the principle of State management 
of all production and distribution for the benefit of all the people— 
the principle variously known as State socialism, social democracy, 
and nationalism. 

But, as we have seen, there are in Switzerland laws which benefit 


218 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


the wage worker in many ways, though not in the direction of State 
socialism. Permit me briefly to summarize these laws: The inherit¬ 
ance laws, by distributing estates, however small, among the children 
of a family, protect a large percentage of the inhabitants from directly 
falling into the ranks of the propertyless wage workers. The federal 
tariff is so framed as to divert taxation mainly to the consumers of 
luxuries and to promote Swiss industries through free raw materials. 
Free trade within Switzerland encourages farming in every form, 
maintaining an unrestricted market for produce. The factory laws 
protect women and children and bring the working day down to equal 
the shortest working day of Switzerland’s competitors in manufac¬ 
tures. Nearly all forms of land monopoly, excepting that of agricul¬ 
tural land—that is, all monopolies connected with the highway (stage 
travel, telegraph, telephone, railway), together with, in large meas¬ 
ure, the forests—being so controlled by the Government that the serv¬ 
ices connected with them are performed at little more than actual 
cost, the wage workers retain, in all these respects, much more of their 
earnings than if these monopolies were in possession of private indi¬ 
viduals, who should charge for their service all the traffic would bear. 
Paying very little of the taxes, the wage workers in the radical cantons, 
again, retain so much the more of the fruits of their labor. In those 
communes in which access to land is free, the wageworker is at once a 
self-employer as to his home site, his cattle runs, etc., and a working 
hand as to his daily factory labor; hence, independent, he demands 
the highest wages his employers’ business will pay. In a word, there¬ 
fore, by her political arrangements, Switzerland might have little or no 
surplus labor if foreigners did not rush in to compete for work with her 
native wage workers. With no surplus laborers, employed labor couid 
then demand its full equitable share of all the product. But, even as 
matters are, a Swiss wage worker who receives half the wages of a New 
York wage worker is really better off—his outlay for the necessaries 
of life is so small in comparison. 

That the Swiss wage worker will continue to be benefited through a 
just government is guaranteed, because he himself is so large a part of 
the Government. The indications are that the propertyless wage 
worker will disappear from Switzerland; that some day, through equal 
access to all forms of land, all the Swiss will start quite even in oppor¬ 
tunities in the race for life, and that thenceforth economic progress 
will be continuous in the direction of voluntary cooperation. That is, 
when this comes to pass, so far from submitting to State socialism, 
the Swiss citizen will enjoy the full freedom of his faculties, only lim¬ 
ited by the equal freedom of others to use their faculties, the result 
being peace, wealth to all who will work, with independence and 
leisure for self-development—conditions essential to rational earthly 
happiness. 

Apply now, citizen of any American municipality, this summary 
of results to your case. If, by direct legislation, you were given as 
your right a free home site on municipal public land, established on 
the same principle as the public parks; if street-car fare were 2 or 3 
cents; if gas were 50 cents a 1,000 feet (about the ‘actual cost of 
these services); if you were relieved of three-fourths of the taxation 
to which you now submit, sometimes unconsciously; if public extrav¬ 
agances were prevented, as you would wish them to be; if privileges 
were withdrawn from monopolist corporations; if taxation and the 
inheritance laws were employed to break up great estates; would not 
your wages, your yearly gains, be doubled? Would you not dwell in 
your own homes? Would you not go on strike, as do the rich, when 


219 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

you felt like it? Would you not take your children from the factory 
and put them to school? Would not the unemployed crowd in the 
labor market be lessened? Would you not, having the opportunity 
to labor, demand, as your own, the full product of your labor? 

Before I finish a comprehensive word as to my facts, motives, and 
purposes. I am not trying to persuade the people of the United States 
to emigrate to Switzerland. I want the best things of Switzerland—its 
political institutions—to be imitated here. I have not said that all 
the people of Switzerland ride in fine carriages; I have said that in 
Switzerland the ratio of legal plunderers to the legally plundered is 
less than any other country. I have not said that the traveler view¬ 
ing Switzerland from hotel and car windows will see no evidences of 
poverty or painful toil; Switzerland, like America, besides having 
poor of its own, is overrun with the poor of other countries, seeking 
work. I have not said that every Swiss is satisfied with his lot or is a 
thrifty man; Switzerland, like the rest of civilization, is cursed with 
strong drink, is afflicted with its proportion of the incapable and with 
the effects of social injustice. I have not said that water will rise 
above its source; I have shown that on recent occasions Swiss votings 
have fallen short of the highest ideal of freedom. I have not said 
there are no party leaders in Switzerland; I have said that no machine 
politician there lives by spoils. I have not said that direct legislation 
is a universal social panacea; I do say that in Switzerland it has 
proved destructive to class law and class privilege, and, being the 
sole method which can exactly indicate where the voters themselves 
stand on every issue, it at one stroke clearly reveals the truth as to 
public sentiment, marks the line of social justice possible at any time, 
and facilitates the task of scientific reformers by quickly disposing of 
purely partisan issues and opening the way to new and living issues. 
I do not undervalue purely moral reforms, public and private; I hold 
that great moral reforms will be the more practicable and will go hand 
in hand with the political reforms that come with direct legislation. I 
do not say that the masses will do no wrong; I do say that direct legis¬ 
lation gives them the immediate opportunity to rectify any political 
fault which they may commit. I am not, I trust I have made it plain, 
offering my fellow-citizens utopian theory; thirty years’trial of the 
method have yielded solid results. I am not trying to build up a 
new political party; I ask men of all parties to unite in a truly 
democratic and truly American method of legislating. I do not say 
direct legislation is enough; I say it clears away the monopoly that 
stands guard over all other monopoly privileges—the monopoly of 
lawmaking controlled by a ring. I have not said that the Swiss have 
fully achieved the social reconstruction possible to their political rev¬ 
olution ; I do say that when their politcial revolution has been equaled 
in the United States—in this broad land of great natural resources— 
when monopoly has been throttled here as it is in Switzerland, com¬ 
mon wages here will be double what they are now; for the unem¬ 
ployed, the surplus labor whose competition now reduces wages, will 
have been absorbed among the steadily employed wage workers and 
the self-employed, living on their own land. 

All the facts that I have repeated this evening look to the past and 
the present. As to the future, Switzerland fears no violent revolu¬ 
tion; a majority may at anytime change, even radically, cantonal 
and federal constitutions; a small minority may propose any constitu¬ 
tional change. The spread of direct legislation, in all its features, to 
every commune and every canton and to all important federal affairs, 
is in the minds of all progressive Swiss citizens merely a question of 


220 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

time. Purely political reforms have been, in all cantons, but the fore¬ 
runners of economic reforms. Thus the Swiss are on the broad high¬ 
way to social regeneration. With direct legislation they have already 
in great measure reorganized, reformed, redeemed, rejuvenated their 
Republic. Not in New York Harbor is the quickened ‘ ‘ Liberty ” which 
enlightens the world; over all Switzerland living liberty illumines the 
land. In the procession of nations moving toward a higher civiliza¬ 
tion first comes—not Columbia, but Helvetia. 


Appendix No. 35. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

NATIONAL VOTINGS IN SWITZERLAND. 

[Translated from the Journal de Geneva by Miss Levin, of New York.] 

Here are the results of the referendary votings which have been 
held since 1848, taken from a recent work on statistics. Since the 
date mentioned the Swiss people have been called forty-six times to 
pronounce upon modifications of the constitution and upon laws and 
decrees which were submitted to them through the referendum. 
There were no popular votings between 1848 and 1866. The results 
are arranged chronologically, and “a” means an affirmative majority 
and “n” a negative majority: 


Year. 


Majority. 

1848 . 

The federal constitution......... 

a 91,266 
a2,866 
a 20,631 
nl4,120 
n63,906 
n12,210 
n 3,363 
n 100,255 
n 39,910 
n37,726 
n 5,253 
a 142,186 
a8,130 
n4,680 
n73,185 
n28,737 
a 5,347 
nil, 180 
n81,674 
a 163,160 
a 18,897 
n139,027 
n13,072 
n 186,313 
n146,129 
n 65,187 
n33,705 
n 81,904 
n 15,395 
a 72,797 
a 128,626 
n 145,644 
a 26,396 
a 191,028 
n262,126 
a 62,4:10 
a 61,070 
a 72,693 
n158,677 
a 64,420 
n22,786 
n 232,405) 
n205,177 
n53,472 
n43,935 
n65,000 

1866 

Weights and measures . .. .. _____ 

1866. 

1866 .. 

Assimilation of all beliefs (religious freedom?). 

Right to vote in communal affairs..... 

1866. 

Factory legislation.... 

1866. 

Right to vote in cantonal affairs..... 

1866 _. 

Liberty of conscience and religion... 

1866 _. 

Suppression of certain punishments... 

1866. 

1866. 

Guarantee of intellectual property (copyright)... 

Prohibition of lotteries and games of chance.... 

1872... 

Federal constitution______ 

1874. 

Federal constitution... 

1875. 

Civil state. 

1875. 

Right to vote......... 

1876 .. 

Bank notes_____ 

1876. 

Military tax..... 

1877. 

Work in factories.... 

1877... 

Military tax______ 

1877.... 

Political rights..... 

1879. 

Subsidy for St. Gothard Tunnel.... 

1879. 

Death penalty__'.... 

1880. 

Bank-note monopoly.. 

1882. 

Patents_________ 

1882. 

Epidemic..... 

1882. 

Secretary of education.. 

1884. 

Secretary of the department of justice.. . 

1884. 

Stabio article.... 

1884. 

Secretary of legation at Washington... 

1884. 

Passports to commercial travelers .. 

1885. 

Alcohol question. 

1887. 

Alcohol monopoly. 

1887. 

Patents. . 

1889. 

Prosecution for debt. 

1890. 

Insurance against sickness and accidents. 

1891. 

Retirement pensions.. 

1891. 

Popular initiative... 

1891. 

Customs tariff.... 

1891. 

Bank-note monopoly.. 

1891. 

Purchase of the Central (Railroad?). 

1893. 

Regulating slaughterhouses.. 

1894. 

Arts and trades... 

1894.... 

Right to work..... 

1894. 

Spoils system (?). 

1895. 

Diplomatic law... 

1895. 

Match monopoly.. 

1895. 

Military articles... 






































































































221 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

'One notes that out of 46 only 17 were accepted. The number of 
yeas has varied for the whole of Switzerland from 2,805 in 1866 to 
191,020 (popular insurance). The number of affirmative Cantons 
has varied from 20£ (popular insurance) to 0 (right to work). The 
30 votings from 1848 to 1891 furnish an average for all Switzer¬ 
land of 176,750 yeas (48.6 per cent), against 187,039 (51.4 per cent). 
The result for Cantons is almost identical. It gives an average of 10£ 
Cantons accepting (47.3 per cent), against 11^ rejecting (52.7 per cent). 
This shows that, in spite of the diversity among the Cantons, their 
vote generally confirms that of the people. On the other hand, be¬ 
cause the vote of the Cantons is a little more favorable than that of 
the people, it follows that, as a rule, the small Cantons are on the 
rejecting side. 

The States which oftenest reject are generally Catholic. The Can¬ 
ton of Appenzell, with 5 acceptances out of 46 votings, has the record 
for rejections. The Canton of Lucerne, which was 40 times on the 
side of the majoritj^, has most often represented popular opinion in 
Switzerland. As the results have more often shown rejection than 
acceptance, one is not surprised to find the rejecting Cantons among 
those most often in the majority, but this is not true of Tessin or 
Appenzell. The former is generally among the rejectors, but it rejects 
where others accept, while Appenzell exaggerates the number of rejec¬ 
tions. 

Finally, one would believe that the large Cantons would most often 
be in the majority, but these figures show that they are divided. A 
fact for rejoicing is that the small Cantons, as a rule, have no com¬ 
plaints of being outnumbered, as they are often on the side of the 
majority. Even Soleure, which is, of all the Cantons, the most fre¬ 
quently outnumbered, has been on the side of the minority. 

Note. —It will be seen by looking over this list that right after the referendum 
was established in 1866 there were 9 measures sent to a vote of the people, of 
which 2 were accepted and 7 rejected. Then there was a wait of six years, after 
which one or two measures were referred to the people almost every year, with a 
slight increase in frequency in recent years. The people are getting to use it more. 

It will also be seen by looking at the votes that the majorities either for or 
against are very irregular. The people are not always swayed one way by one 
party or by the advice of their legislative counselors. They seem to follow "their 
own opinions. 


Appendix No. 36. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, September, 1894.] 

NATIONAL REFERENDUM VOTINGS IN SWITZERLAND. 

[By J. W. Sullivan.] 

Since 1874 the Federal Assembly (Congress) has passed close on to 
175 laws, 19 of which have been called to a popular vote through peti¬ 
tion for the referendum, while 8 amendments to the constitution pro¬ 
posed by the Federal Assembly have, as required, also gone to the 
polls, with, besides, 2 amendments proposed by the initiative, under 
a constitutional provision adopted in 1891, by which 50,000 signa¬ 
tures send a question to the whole people. Thus, in all, up to June 
3, 1894, there were 29 questions submitted to the nation, of which 16 
received disapproval and 13 approval. 

Nothing more significant, more enlightening as to the character and 



222 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

development of the whole people has ever taken place in any country 
than these 29 national votes. They show that pure democracy is 
possible on a wide scale and that the prominent issues in progres¬ 
sive countries are much alike. They plainly tell how it is that the 
Swiss have been enabled to go ahead settling such issues while 
the American people are yet puzzling over them. They mark off as 
well the debatable ground of Swiss justice and indicate both the 
strength and the weakness of the Swiss national character. 

In looking into these votings one must remember something vastly 
more profound in its effects than the votings themselves. This is the 
deterrent and corrective consequences arising from the mere existence 
of the popular veto. The minds of the so-called lawmakers in the 
Swiss Congress are ever directed to the watchful majority of the peo¬ 
ple. No suspicious haste, then, in legislation; no confusion; no trick¬ 
iness; no creation of privileges; no ignoring of public opinion; no 
evasion of urgent questions. Nor are bids made for the votes of small 
groups of representatives possessing a balance of power. Threats 
from petty factions in congress or out coerce no members. The one 
question is ever the possible good, for the general good must, in self¬ 
protection, be the aim of the majority in the nation. Actually, then, 
every law passed by the Swiss Congress is submitted to the latent ref¬ 
erendum; that is to say, the referendum through its passive force 
forestalls nearly all law objectionable to the prevailing national will. 

The first proposal of law ever submitted to the votes of the entire 
Swiss nation (23d of May, 1875) was a general bill on marriage and 
civil registry. This measure took the authority of marriage and the 
registry of marriages, births, etc., from the control of the church and 
placed them in the hands of the state. It withdrew from the Catholic 
Church any effective legal prohibition of mixed marriages; it destroyed 
all ancient legal obstacles to marriage among the poor; it established 
divorce for five causes, adding that in any case in which a married 
couple should declare their marriage bonds to be profoundly and inju¬ 
riously affected a legal separation of the couple could be had for two 
years, to be followed, if reconciliation were still beyond their wishes, 
by absolute divorce. The referendum on this law was clamorously 
demanded; the petition rolled up the enormous number of 106,560 sig¬ 
natures. The signs were for an overwhelming negative vote. But 
by a majority of 8,000 in a vote of 418,000 the law was adopted. For 
several years after the ratio of divorces to marriages, which had been 
7 to 1,000, rose to 47—about that in several American States. 

The second referendary measure, decided on the same day with the 
marriage law, was rejected. It provided for Federal regulation of 
the right to vote. The citizenship vetoing the measure adjusted this 
a cantonal (state) right. So also did another law voted on in 1877. 
Movement here from centralization. 

The third vote (23d of April, 1876) concerned the issue of paper 
currency. Two other votes have since been taken on this question 
(31st of October, 1880; 18th of October, 1891). The vote of 1891 
makes the issue of paper money a monopoly of the Federal Govern¬ 
ment. 

Two referendary votes (9th of July, 1876; 21st of October, 1877) 
related to a special tax on citizens exempted through physical dis¬ 
ability from military service. A third law on the subject (28th of 
June, 1878) escaped the referendum. In its final form the law imposes 
a tax graduated according to income on men of the exempt class. 
This tax brings in an annual revenue of more than $500,000. 


223 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Three laws were comprised in the referendary voting on October 21, 
18/7. Besides the military-tax law, one relating to factory regula¬ 
tions and one providing for a subsidy of $4,000,000 for the St. Gothard 
tunnel were adopted. The factory law, prescribing a maximum work¬ 
day of eleven hours and the conditions under which women and chil¬ 
dren should be employed, was at that period the most advanced on the 
Continent. 

The ninth vote (18th of May, 1879) placed capital punishment under 
the jurisdiction of the cantons. The constitution of 1874 had abol- 
ished capital, punishment; in 1879, however, several Cantons claimed 
jurisdiction over this question as a State right; the Federal referen¬ 
dary vote gave it them, many citizens who opposed capital punish¬ 
ment voting for State rights in the question as against centralizing 
the authority. Eight of the smaller cantons, in all comprising about 
a fifth of the population, thereupon readopted the death penalty. So 
matters stood until 1893, when a ninth canton, Schaffhausen, with 
one-eightieth of Switzerland’s population, reenacted it. But the fact 
still remains that, under direct legislation, no man has been executed 
in Switzerland in this generation. Four-fifths of the population pro¬ 
hibit the death penalty for any crime whatever, and the Confedera¬ 
tion prohibits it for political offenses. A wide departure this from 
former Swiss custom. In 1580 Switzerland witnessed 1,500 executions. 
In fifty years in the seventeenth century Geneva put to death 150 
persons for witchcraft alone. In 1782 a man was executed in Glarus 
for sorcery. In 1824 Zug put a man to the rack. In 1840 Obwald 
had its executioner to beat a man with rods in the torture chamber. 

The tenth vote was one of the three on the issue of paper currency. 
The eleventh (30th of July, 1882) defeated a measure providing for 
patents on inventions, and for five years Switzerland issued no such 
patents, but a law on the subject was accepted July 10, 1887. The 
twelfth vote (30th of July, 1882) decided whether vaccination should 
or should not be compulsory. After a thorough general discussion, 
in which the scientific antivaccinationists obtained a hearing with 
the general public, the Swiss, by the remarkable vote of 254,340 nays 
against 68,027 yeas, decided in the negative. The Swiss judgment 
here was not that vaccination has never lessened the terrors of small¬ 
pox, but that with a clean, healthy, and intelligent nation the possi¬ 
ble evils of vaccination are greater than its possible benefits. 

The thirteenth vote (26th of November, 1882) was attended with 
greater popular excitement than any other has evoked since the refer¬ 
endum was adopted. The measure submitted provided not only for 
the complete secularization of public instruction, but for innovations 
shocking to the Swiss sects. No religious person, method, object, hall, 
or agency of any kind was thenceforth to be connected with the public 
schools. This, while in scores, perhaps hundreds, of communes every 
citizen is a Catholic and the schools are in the churches. The opponents 
of the proposed law raised the cry: “No schools without God!” The 
advocates of the law responded: “Public schools for instruction; 
private churches for religion.” The demand for the referendum was 
signed by almost a third of the voters—180,995. Catholic Switzer¬ 
land arrayed itself solidly against the measure; for once, great bodies 
from the Protestant majority assisted the Catholics. The opposition 
declared that the supporters of the law were socialists, freethinkers, 
and radical Germans. The law was rejected—318,139 to 172,010. 

A year later (11th of May, 1884) the referendum defeated four prop¬ 
ositions of Congress—all minor affairs—one providing for the organi¬ 
se I>oc. 26-47 


224 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

zation of a federal department of justice and police; a second remov¬ 
ing a tax from commercial travelers; a third appropriating $2,000 a 
year for a secretary of the Swiss legation at Washington; a fourth 
empowering the federal council to transfer certain cases from can¬ 
tonal courts to the federal court. The defeat of these four measures 
was commonly attributed to the desire to check federal authority and 
to resentment toward the radical majority in Congress for passing the 
detested secular bill. Singularly, however, at the next e^ction this 
same set of radicals was reseated, the people satisfied that in general 
they could do their work well. 

The eighteenth vote (25th of October, 1885) was on a constitutional 
amendment which made the manufacture of distilled liquors a monop- „ 
oly of the State. This proposition was opposed by the private liquor 
interests. Deploige says it was also opposed by the socialists, who 
would rather see fine wines taxed; Government manufacture of liquors 
would * ‘ raise the price of the poor man’s schnapps. ” But the amend¬ 
ment was carried, and the State now monopolizes the distilling busi¬ 
ness. The nineteenth vote was on the law putting the liquor monopoly 
into practical effect. The protesting referendary petition calling 
forth this vote was signed by 52,412 citizens, 18,000 of whom were 
connected with the whisky interests of Berne and 5,000 with the 
absinthe trade of Neuchatel. The law was accepted—total vote, 
405,618; majority, 128,626. The Government bought out all the 
vested liquor interests it displaced. 

The twentieth was the successful vote on patents. The twenty-first 
(17th of November, 1889) established a national bankruptcy law, with 
provisions of increased liberality for the insolvent. The twenty- 
second (26th of October, 1890) accepted an amendment providing for 
State life insurance, which could be made obligatory on a class of 
wage workers. The twenty-third (15th of March, 1891) rejected by 
353,977 votes against 91,851 a measure establishing pensions for retired 
Federal officeholders. The twenty-fourth (5th of July, 1891) accepted 
the amendment authorizing the Federal initiative. The twenty-fifth, 
also an amendment (18th of October, 1891), made paper currency a 
monopoly of the State. The twenty-sixth vote, on the same day as 
the last, accepted a tariff with protective features—a tariff of defense, 
it was called, against the high tariffs of surrounding nations. The 
twenty-seventh vote (6th of December, 1891) refused to make the 
railroads Government property. M. Deploige says the reasons for 
this adverse vote were, first, fear of creating a Federal bureaucracy 
and fortifying the centralized power, and, secondly, a determination 
to disappoint the speculators who had cornered the railway stocks. 

The twenty-eighth vote (20th of August, 1893) forbids the slaughter 
of any animal unless it is rendered insensible before being bled. The 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals pushed the initiative 
on this amendment. It has been much quoted, in Europe and Amer¬ 
ica, as a persecution of the 8,000 Jews of Switzerland. But, providing 
the animal is stunned before its throat is cut, the Talmudic customs 
in slaughtering may be followed. 

The twenty-ninth vote (3d of June, 1894) on the right of employ¬ 
ment by the State was rejected. (See Record, June, p. 20.) 

Socialist, freethinker, Catholic, stockjobber, distiller, federalist— 
these and others have seen their privileges or pet projects go down 
before the referendum. In their pessimistic moments they will find 
fault with the court by which they were condemned. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


225 


Appendix No. 37. 

[Prom the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1896, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

THE SWISS STAND AGAINST CENTRALIZATION. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

There w-re two referendary votes in Switzerland last fall. The 
following translations from Swiss papers will throw full light on these. 
They were furnished by Philip Jamin, of Geneva, and translated by 
Miss Mann, of New York. 

The first four quotations refer to the vote on November 3, on the 
question whether the control of the militia should be taken out from 
the cantonal governments and given to the Federal Government. It 
was a proposition passed by the Federal Government, and so had 
their full sanction, and the referendum was called on it. The first 
quotation was from a paper issued two or three months before the 
voting was taken; the other three quotations are from papers issued 
shortly after the voting: 

[From the Journal de Geneva.] 

There are differences of opinion about the organization, instruc¬ 
tion, and administration of the army, and also whether the nomina¬ 
tion of officers, distribution of engagements, expenses of service, etc., 
shall continue to belong to the officers of the Cantons or shall be trans¬ 
ferred to the national officials in the arrondissement. Our studies 
are to leave it as it is. Our army is for the defense of the nation, and 
the result of the referendum voting will increase or diminish its force 
of resistance. 

[From La Liberte, of Fribourg, Switzerland.] 

There is no lack of courage, endurance, or docility in our army. 
The defect is higher up. It is too much officialism and ceremony. 

The true feeling of democracy vanishes in proportion as the idea of 
centralization makes its way. The people do not wish centralization. 
It is necessary to use artifice to lure them to hide the reality of things 
from them, as the sellers of ouack medicine do, in order to get them 
to centralize their administration. 

[From La Suisse Liberale, of Neuchatel.] 

It was not the army which was touched by Sunday’s vote. Let us 
not infer that the Swiss people are disaffected with their militia; on 
the contrary, they will make any sacrifice necessary, and they would 
consider the proposed change a grave error. If the people had con¬ 
sidered the proposed revision necessary, they would have voted for 
it; for they know that the army is the surest guaranty of the security 
of the country and of its neutrality. 

[From L’Avenir, of Geneva.] 

The Swiss people have spoken. Last Sunday, by 75,000 majority, 
they refused the military centralization. * * * We can but con¬ 

gratulate the Swiss people on the high intelligence they have shown 
in this voting. 

What was proposed? Simply the transfer to Bern (the national 
capital) of twenty-five military departments, which then would have 
made a single one. We persist in thinking it the work of jingoes and 
people inflated with pomposity and love of war. 

S. Doc. 340-15 


226 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

This is not true patriotic sentiment. The Swiss army is an army 
for defense, and, from that point of view, it is amply instructed and 
efficient as far as the troops and officers are concerned. 

On September 28 the Swiss voted on the question whether the manu¬ 
facture of matches should be a government monopoly or not. The 
following quotation is from a paper issued shortly after the national 
legislature had passed the law for this purpose and before the referen¬ 
dum had been demanded on it: 

[From Les Conseils Des Etats.j 

Another monopoly? A monopoly of matches is demanded on two 
grounds, hygienic and economic. It is claimed that the present manu¬ 
facture is inhuman; furthermore, the manufacturers have difficulty 
in living and supporting foreign competition. It is proved that the 
manufacture may be carried on without disease, and the Swedish 
process will contribute to that end. The private conduct of the 
industry may perfect itself when it is no longer menaced by expro¬ 
priation by the Confederation. Capital will flow into it then. There 
is a demand nowadays for the Confederation to make itself a manu¬ 
facturer in order to save industries which are unprofitable. But this 
is not its role, unless we wish to create a complete collectivist state. 

The protection of the workmen’s health would be much more effica¬ 
ciously secured by a law forbidding the use of injurious processes 
(yellow phosphorus) than by a new monopoly. Science can easily 
be applied to make the manufacture harmless. It is done elsewhere, 
and this we can do. 

The discussion has been going on for two years in the two councils. 
At last they have voted. Three propositions were up: First, monop¬ 
oly; second, monopoly, and third, prohibition of yellow phosphorus. 
By 22 votes against 18 the monopoly gained. And oh! the beautiful 
referendum in view! 

[From letter from Philip Jamin, of Geneva, written after the voting on this match question; 

translated by Miss Levin.] 

The explanation of the vote on the match question is clear. It is necessary to 
say, first, that matches are actually made without phosphorus and without dam¬ 
age to the health of the workers. A factory making matches without phosphorus 
existed at Fleurier, but it could not sustain itself against the factories using phos¬ 
phorus. All that is required to insure the manufacture of matches without 
phosphorus is that the Federal Government should prohibit the sale of phos¬ 
phorus matches, as well as their use. Certain injurious things are wisely pro¬ 
hibited in commerce, and can not be obtained without the signature of a physician. 

But that is not the thing wanted by the politicians at Bern; they want a new 
source of revenue that can not be controlled by the Cantons. The rulers encounter 
great difficulties when they try to impose taxes with a view to creating new 
monopolies which will turn in millions. The people have accepted the monopoly 
of alcohol, presented like this match question, as a humanitarian matter. It hoped 
to triumph on like grounds on this question. The negative vote settled it. The 
referendum has given most satisfactory results. 

On this occasion a great number of socialists, nearly half in certain Cantons, 
voted against this measure, although it is well known that the socialistic idea is 
to extend the province of the Government as far and as fast as possible to manu¬ 
factures, to railroads, sickness and old age, insurance, etc. The socialists who 
voted against this measure knew that during the two or three years that the law 
was enforced they could count but three or four cases of necrose (the disease pro¬ 
duced by handling phosphorus), and that these had been contracted before the 
application of the law; but when the question of a government monopoly of match 
making came up, an increase of the malady was proved, and at the same time it 
was shown that the factory inspectors had culpably failed to enforce the law. 
The lesson learned by this false show is that necrose is only a pretext. Nothing 
is more false than the pretended interest in the laborer’s welfare. 

A persistent application of the law on manufacturers, or a single article added, 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 227 

like that which prohibits the sale of dynamite, would have sufficed. The prohibi¬ 
tion of the use of phosphorus would check the malady at its source. 

Among the partisans of the law one finds: 

First. The makers of matches, delighted at the prospect of selling for ready 
money those factories which are not prospering. 

Second. Those voters who thought that to give the business into the hands of 
the Government was the only way to protect the health of the workers. 

Third. Those who hoped to find through the creation of this monopoly places 
as inspectors, directors, subinspectors, etc. 

Fourth. An important number of voters, socialists, who regard every bit of 
centralization in the hands of the Government as a step toward socialism. 

Fifth. The rulers and the troops, who obey them blindly. 

The opposition counts in its ranks: 

First. The men who know that matches can be made without phosphorus, and 
that a steady application of the law would prevent the return of necrose, but that 
for their own purposes the rulers have recently failed to enforce the law. 

Second. The voters, who oppose on principle any extension of the Federal powers. 

Third. Different independent factions of the socialists, who regard the develop¬ 
ment of officialism as a farce. 

In a word, the true inwardness of this vote is an effort on the part of the Gov¬ 
ernment to increase the resources of the treasury, and the bait was the security 
of the worker's health. It failed. 


Appendix No. 38. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, September, 1897, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

THE RAILWAY QUESTION IN SWITZERLAND. 

[By Altweed Pomeroy.] 

In Switzerland complete publicity of accounts of the railway com¬ 
panies is enforced with a uniform system of bookkeeping; no water¬ 
ing of stock is allowed, and dividends beyond a certain amount go to 
the State. The Government fixes both the passenger and freight 
rates, the number of trains and cars, that all lines go into union sta¬ 
tions, the roadbed, and various other details. But despite this very 
strict control both of the finances and of the operation, there has 
been a growing restiveness among the people and a desire to own and 
operate the railways. In 1879, by an affirmative majority of 163,160, 
the Swiss voted a subsidy for the St. Gothard Tunnel. This and the 
other great tunnel and a few short lines have been owned and oper¬ 
ated by the Government for years, but the sentiment for Government 
ownership had not grown strong enough in 1891 to carry the proposi¬ 
tion to buy the Central Railway, one of the most important lines. 
This was negatived by a majority of 156,671 votes. 

But the feeling has been growing steadily stronger, and on October 
1, 1896, the whole question was submitted to the people by an initia¬ 
tive petition and carried by a vote of 221,222 for and 171,671 against, 
or a majority for of 49,551. The full text of the proposition voted on 
is very interesting, and is as follows: 

(1) The construction and operation of railroads for the ordinary and public 
transit of persons and merchandise is the duty of the Confederation. The rail¬ 
ways of Switzerland shall be administered by a railway council elected by the 
people. In minor details of the large companies the advice of the local govern¬ 
ments shall be obtained. The civil service of the railways shall be the same as for 
other Federal affairs. The insurance funds established in favor of the railway 
employees shall be maintained without change. 

The net profit of the railways should be employed to facilitate transit, diminish 
rates for persons and merchandise, and to decrease the debt A federal law shall 
determine the manner of procuring funds, organization, working management, 
and superintendence of the state railways as for private lines; it shall also fix the 



228 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

subsidies to be furnished sections desiring new lines. The engagements of the 
Federation for the tunneling of the Alps of western and eastern Switzerland shall 
be maintained. 

(2) At any time the Confederation is authorized to acquire lines now or in the 
future in operation. The purchase price shall be twenty-five times the annual 
report and half the cost of operating during the ten years previous to the purchase 
of the lines. In the determining of this net product the following factors shall be 
considered: A just proportion of the payments or cost of renewal (repairs), a 
sufficient amount to the sinking fund, a sufficient number of employees and suffi¬ 
cient salaries for them, and the subsidies of the Confederation and the Cantons. 

From twenty-five times the annual report shall be deducted a sufficient sum to 
place the lines in complete repair, including the roadbed, stations, engine houses, 
etc. The purchase includes all the property of the interested companies. If the 
purchase price of all the stock of the railroads calculated on this basis does not 
reach two-thirds of the cost of construction or working capital, then the price 
shall be increased to two-thirds of the working capital. The Federal Council shall 
decide on all points in litigation. 

(3) Before purchase of all roads is made the Confederation is authorized to 
acquire the working of single lines. By January 1, 1898, it shall take to itself, on 
the basis outlined, the management of the Swiss Central, the Jura-Simplon, the 
Northeast Swiss, and tne roads of the Swiss Union. All construction or purchase 
of material for working shall be at the expense of the Confederation, with the 
right of recourse to the companies, according to article 2. 

It shall take all the personnel into its service, reserving the right to dispose of 
employees according to its pleasure, and shall pay to the companies from 1898 to 
1902, inclusive, an annuity representing the net product for the years 1888 to 1892, 
inclusive, calculated according to article 2. On January 1, 1903, the Confedera¬ 
tion shall take all the railroads. The price of acquisition to be determined at that 
date shall be less the debt of the companies in obligations if assumed by the Con¬ 
federation, and shall be settled by the payment of the balance either in coin or in 
Confederation titles. The smaller lines shall be acquired as soon as possible. 

There has been much hesitation on the part of the National Govern¬ 
ment to frame and pass the laws to carry this clearly expressed will of 
the people into effect. Several papers and many people have urged 
another initiative to make the Government act, and the Journal de 
Geneva during the winter spoke as follows of the Gautschy committee, 
which secured the signatures to the initiative petition voted on last 
fall: 

The Gautschy committee, which has not judged it well to help forward the names 
that have been sent them for the expropriation of the railroads, thus explains itself 
in a memorial sent to the Federal Council. The following is the main passage: 
“The purchase has been decided by a vote of the people in a manner clear and 
precise, and belongs, we hope, to the past. In leaving for the moment the author¬ 
ity to take such an important step in the hands of the federal authorities and taking 
the rank of spectators, all the responsibility is thrown on our representatives. If, 
within the specified time a law is presented to us which guarantees the purchase 
of the railroads in the sense and spirit of the initiative, then we will sustain it 
without reserve, as we did the law on the accountability. But if the law mistakes 
our intention, we shall join those who consider the good of the Swiss people of 
more importance than the interests of the railroad companies.” 

But without the aid of this committee an initiative petition for this 
purpose was started and the necessary signatures procured according 
to Der Grutlianer, of Zurich, of March 30 last. But it will probably 
not be filed, as the Federal Council (or Bundesrath) has made inves¬ 
tigation concerning purchase price, etc., and on March 25, 1897, in an 
able report said, among other things: 

(1) In the Bundesrath’s opinion, a fair purchase price would at this time call for 
964,384,769 francs. 

(2) The best way to pay for the roads is to issue bonds. 

(3) With Government bonds issued at 31 per cent interest the income derived 
from Government ownership of railroads would be sufficient to pay: (a) Running 
expenses; ( b ) interest on bonds issued for the purchase: (c) a sum into a sinking 
fund sufficient to buy all these bonds by 1962; (d) a surplus net income of 2,108 000 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 229 

francs a year, to be used as a surplus for equalization of annual income or in 
reduction of transport charges. 

(4) Perhaps the Government could even sell railway bonds at par with only 3 
per cent interest, leaving a net annual surplus of 4,437,090 francs. 

In the estimate of purchase price the Bundesrath did not take into account what 
it considers fictitious railway stock. 

Last fall the National Legislature had appropriated 5,000 francs for 
two years to ascertain the exact wages of the railways’ employees. 

Thanks are due to Miss Ella Levin, of New York, and Max Burg- 
holtzer, of Bnxton, Oreg., for translations. 


A SWISS OPINION ON RAILWAYS. 

[By Rev. Adolph Roeder.] 

The movement of direct legislation in Switzerland in the past three 
months presents two interesting phases. On one of them—the resto¬ 
ration of railways to State ownership—on which a vote was taken on 
the 4th of October, the Grutlianer, of Zurich, comments as follows: 

The vote was especially surprising in Canton Berne. He who knows the local 
conditions knows that the Conservatives, and especially the People’s Party, have 
suffered a very painful defeat in their unfruitful opposition. We now know that 
if State proprietorship of the railroads is ever to be realized Berne will be a strong¬ 
hold for that fact. That the old canton of destiny, St. Gallon, also moved along 
in the same line is not less gratifying. When we knew its result we said, “So 
now the cause is good.” Right bravely have Aargau and Baseband stood up, and 
the minority vote in Tessin and Graubuenden was much larger than one might 
have hoped. Everywhere an awakening of public conscience! The whole inner 
Switzerland has this time held its own. That Zurich, Basle, Appenzell, Glarus, 
Thurgan should line up in strong numbers in favor of the law was expected by 
friend and foe. Especial mention should be made of this fact, that the superfluous 
‘* yeas ” of the metropolis, Zurich, absolutely balance and more than balance up the 
negative majority of the Cantons Neuenburg and Geneva. 

On Zurich the confederate advancement continually counts. All in all, the 4th 
of October, 1896, was a good day. Its device runs: “The Swiss railroads to the 
Swiss.” 


Appendix No. 39. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, September, 1897.] 

THE SWISS REFERENDUM ON A NATIONAL BANK. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

Few people are aware how important and how similar to our own are 
the questions which are agitating the Swiss people. The echoes of our 
last fall campaign on the money question are still ringing in our ears. 
The 28th day of last February in Switzerland ended a campaign on the 
money question on far more scientific lines than our own, and it, too, 
ended in a defeat of the Radicals or Progressives. The issues in this 
campaign have not been reviewed in our magazines and barely men¬ 
tioned, much less clearly stated, in our press; yet they are very sig¬ 
nificant. 

There are at present 18 cantonal, 3 cantonal and private, and 13 
private banks in Switzerland. By the law of June 14, 1881, banks 
may be organized to any extent, with the approval of the Government, 
which has the right to limit their note issues. But to issue notes a 
bank must have a capital of 500,000 francs, and must keep a metallic 




230 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


reserve of 40 per cent of the notes out, and the remaining 60 per cent 
can he in commercial paper or other securities or the cantonal guaran¬ 
tee, but a bank can not issue more than twice its paid-up capital, and 
twenty banks have the cantonal guarantee. These banks are under 
very strict Government supervision; so strict, that when the law was 
passed it was said they would go out of business, and yet in 1896 the 
banking capital was $85 per capita; in Great Britain it was $120, and 
in the United States $93.69 and in Germany $44, so that Switzerland 
is well up, and the circulation has increased from under a one hundred 
million francs in 1881 to nearly twice that amount in 1896, or from 
nearly $7 per capita to nearly $16. 

For years there has been an agitation for a national Swiss bank, 
completely owned and operated by the National Government, which 
should issue the money of the country and be a bank of deposit, dis¬ 
count, and exchange as well. This resulted in a submission to the 
people on October 31, 1880, of a proposition for a single great bank, 
with a monopoly of note issues, which was defeated by a vote of 260,- 
126 against to 121,099 in favor, or of seventeen and a half to four and 
a half Cantons in favor. After this the law of 1881 was passed. 

In 1890 the federal council sent a message to the Federal Assembly 
on it. This is similar to a message of our President to Congress. 
This is inserted almost in full, because it states concisely most of the 
arguments against such a bank. 

MESSAGE OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL TO THE FEDERAL ASSEMBLY. 

Concerning the revision of article 39 of the federal constitution 
(of December 30, 1890): 

All the great banks of centralized power to issue notes in Europe, 
whether with or without a monopoly, such as the National Bank of 
Belgium, the National Bank of Denmark, the Bank of the German 
Empire, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, the National 
Italian Bank, the Bank of Peys-Bas, th'e Bank of Norway, the Bank 
of Austria-Hungary, the National Bank of Roumania, the Bank of 
Spain, etc., with the single exception of the Bank of Russia, are insti¬ 
tuted on the basis of private exploitation of the issuing of money. 
The starting of the monopoly of notes or paper money is an innova¬ 
tion of economic importance so considerable, that it is a serious matter 
for another country to undertake another course. 

Partisan politics can only be hurtful when it agitates the solution 
of a purely economic question, and probably these influences will be 
quickly felt in the state bank. Political and economic interests have 
each its particular point of view, which can not be confounded without 
injury to both; one has need only to guard against the possibility of 
seeing the bank used detrimentally in the midst of political wars and 
interests, or the heads of the bank will be exposed to the temptations 
from each of the opposing parties and the credit of the bank attacked. 

Under the regime of private banks the credit of State and of the 
bank can remain independent; under a state bank there is but one 
credit. The private bank can subsist by itself; it has no need of a 
State guaranty any more than have the foreign banks -of private or 
centralized emission of money. 

The best form for our country appears to be, as exists elsewhere, a 
private bank, placed under the efficacious supervision of the State, and 
at the direction of the latter to cooperate with the representatives of 


231 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

commerce and direct interests. It is under this form that the just 
mean between the interests of the State general economic interests 
and the particular interests of commerce will be reached. This it is 
that can offer the best guaranty of the accomplishment of the grand 
economic task which encumbers it without being burdened with inter¬ 
est foreign to the matter. 

Finally, under this form, the private bank gives to the State—that 
is to say, to the Confederation and the Cantons—a participation in 
the benefits without involving them in actual losses, while under a 
state bank both losses and gains would be shared. 

But the main reason for the department of finance declaring for a 
bank having the character of a private institution is to be found in 
the fact that, according to international rights, private property is 
protected in case of war, while State property becomes the prey of the 
vanquisher. Also the holdings of the state bank, as well as the 
deposits confided to it, would be in danger in case of war. Precisely 
at the moment the bank is called upon to render the greatest service 
to commerce there would be general defiance, and each one would 
hasten to withdraw his deposits. 

But the movement for a complete Government issue of money had 
grown so strong, that only the next year, on October 18, 1891, the 
Federal Assembly submitted to the people an amendment to the con¬ 
stitution, where it declared it should not be in the power of the Fed¬ 
eral Assembly to “establish a monopoly of the issue of bank bills nor 
decree their obligatory acceptance.” 

The new article was as follows: 

The right of issuing bank notes and all other credit money shall belong exclu¬ 
sively to the Federation. 

The Federation may exercise the monopoly of bank notes through a state bank 
or through a private, central share bank under reservation of the right to repur¬ 
chase and under the control of the Federation. 

The bank invested with monopoly shall have the duty of acting in Switzerland 
as the regulator of the money market and of facilitating exchanges. Not less 
than two-thirds of its net profits, after deducting a fit reserve fund and a dividend 
sufficient to compensate the capital, shall belong to the Canton. 

The bank and its branches shall be exempt from all imposts by the Canton. 
Only in case of necessity in time of war shall the obligatory acceptance of its 
notes be decreed by the Federation. 

Federal legislation shall prescribe other regulations concerning it. 

This was adopted by 231,578 votes in favor to 158,651 against. It 
remained for the national legislature to decide whether the bank 
should be run by public or private funds, etc. In 1894 they prepared 
a project, but there was so much opposition to it that it was laid over 
and revised in the summer of 1896, when the revision passed the 
National Council by a vote of 89 to 43, and the Council of the States by 
a vote of 27 to 17. Very quickly the signatures of 83,000 electors 
(only 30,000 are needed) were secured to petitions for a referendum 
on this law, and it took place about eight months after the law had 
been passed, and ended in its defeat by a vote of 244,219 against to 
194,465 in favor. The law is a closely printed pamphlet of 8 pages, 
and was sent to each voter by mail. It was followed at private expense 
by a flood of pamphlets and newspaper articles, and was discussed in 
many meetings and other ways. 


232 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


% 

DIGEST OF FEDERAL LAW CREATING A BANK OF THE SWISS 
CONFEDERATION. 

[Passed the Federal Assembly June 18,1896. Voted on by the Swiss people February 28,1897.] 

I. GENERAL PROVISIONS. 

Article 1. The Confederation founds a bank, called “Bank of the 
Swiss Confederation,” with the exclusive right of issuing bank notes. 

Its chief function is to regulate the money market and facilitate 
operation of payment. It will also serve as treasury of the Confeder¬ 
ation gratis, in so far as called upon. 

Art. 2. The Confederation guarantees all the operations of the 
bank. 

Art. 3. Principal office at Berne. May have branches anywhere in 
Switzerland, with consent of central government. 

Authorized to acquire existing banks and to continue them as 
branches. 

Each Canton may insist on having a branch in its territory. 

In establishing agencies, preference given to existing state and 
cantonal banks. 

Art. 4. Capital 25,000,000 francs, to be all paid in before operations 
begin. May be increased by Federal Assembly to 50,000,000 francs. 

Two-fifths of capital reserved for Cantons to subscribe; three-fifths 
the Confederation will answer for, and also the balance not provided 
by the Cantons. The Confederation will raise its share by issuing 
bonds. f 

Cantons need not subscribe, but if they do, they are responsible for 
their proportion. 

All the shares must be held by the Confederation or by the Cantons 
or certain public bodies, but not by individuals. 

Art. 5. Cantons can not tax bank, with specific exceptions, as to 
stamps on checks, etc. 

II. THE OPERATIONS OF THE BANK. 

Art. 6. Operations of bank limited to issue of notes and discount. 

(a) It may discount Swiss notes (not over three months and two 
good indorsers). 

(b) Buy drafts on foreign countries. 

(c) Loan on security, such as bonds, etc., but not on shares of 
stocks nor for over three months. 

( d ) Buy public bonds for temporary holding. 

le) Receive deposits on account current, with or without interest. 

(/) Buy and sell gold and silver on its own account or for others. 

(g) Issue certificates for gold or silver. 

Art. 7. The bank must accept without charge all payments on 
account of the Confederation and its departments, and pay out for 
the Confederation and its departments as far as it has funds. 

Also, it must, on the demand of the Confederation, receive on 
deposit and manage, without charge, any bonds or other such prop¬ 
erty confided to it by the Confederation. 

III. THE ISSUE AND REDEMPTION OF BANK NOTES. 

Art. 8. The bank may issue any amount of bank notes up to limit 
fixed by Federal Assembly. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 233 

Bank notes are manufactured, retired, and destroyed under survey- 
ance of federal department of finance. 

They are in denominations of 50, 100, 500, 1,000 francs; but in 
extraordinary cases the Assembly may authorize smaller denomina¬ 
tions. 

Art. 10. The total value of notes in circulation must be covered 
by bullion, foreign coin, and discounted notes; the metal reserve must 
be at least one-third circulation. 

Art. 11. The bank must also have a reserve sufficient to cover all 
short obligations, viz, due in ten days. 

Art. 12. Regulates payments at Berne and at branches. 

* Art. 13. Must accept its notes at par. 

Public offices must do likewise. Beyond this their acceptance can 
not be enforced except in case of war. 

Art. 14. Replacing torn bills. 

Art. 15. Worn bills. 

Art. 16. Jurisdiction of courts. 

IV. ACCOUNTING PROFITS, RESERVE, REPORTS. 

Art. 17. Accounts submitted to Federal Assembly. 

Art. 18. Twenty-five per cent of profits goes to reserve. From bal¬ 
ance interest not exceeding 3^ per cent is paid on capital. In case 
there is not enough, the difference is taken from reserve. The bal¬ 
ance goes to Cantons. 

Art. 19. Reserve invested in Swiss and foreign national debts. No 
interest allowed on it. 

Art. 20. Reserve belongs to bank. Only taken to make up 3-j- per 
cent interest and losses in capital. 

Art. 21. Rate of discount and interest to be published. Weekly 
balance and annual report. 

V. ADMINISTRATION. 

Art. 22. Council of auditors and local committees, also board of 
directors and local boards. 

(Arts. 23 to 38 govern details of management.) 

VI. SURVEYANCE BY FEDERAL ASSEMBLY. 

Art. 39. Auditing committee provided for. 

VII. PENAL PROVISIONS. 

(Arts. 40 to 47, penalties for counterfeiting, etc.) 

VIII. TEMPORARY PROVISION. 

(Arts. 48 to 56 provide for interim before law goes into operation.) 

Notice four significant things about this law which were probably 
main causes in "its defeat. By article 1 it would have the exclusive 
right of issuing bank notes. At present many of the Cantons have 
banks which they own and operate which issue bank notes. These 
could be acquired and continued as branches, and the taking away 
from them of the power to issue notes would almost force them to 
become branches. This means a great centralization of power, to 
which the Swiss have always been opposed, and this centralization 
would be the more tremendous from the fact that it would put in the 


234 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


control of one set of men the power of discounting notes. This the 
Swiss people clearly saw. 

Second. The bank notes to be issued could not be really money for 
the people, as the smallest denomination, save in “extraordinary 
cases,” was to be 50 francs, or $10, and this is far too large for ordi¬ 
nary retail transactions. Hence this money would only be money for 
wholesale and for bankers. 

Third. While three-fifths, and perhaps the whole of the capital, 
was to be furnished by the National Government and obtained by 
them by the issuance of bonds, on which they would pay interest 
(article 4), the bank notes issued were to be completely covered by 
bullion, foreign coin, and discounted notes, and “the metal reserved 
must be at least one-third of the circulation. ” (Article 10.) Thus the 
notes are really based on the credit of the nation, and 3 ^et bonds are 
issued on which the nation pays interest to provide a fund amount¬ 
ing to the total value of the notes, and one-third of this must be bul¬ 
lion or coin. It is hardly probable that these bonds could be marketed 
at less than 3-J- per cent interest, and yet that is the largest amount 
of interest which the capital stock can receive, and until a reserve 
is laid aside, which probably will not be for some years, it may not 
get that (section 18). It looks as if this was a scheme to furnish either 
a very small circulating medium or a large, secure investment for 
capitalists in the bonds of the Confederation, a large market for gold 
or silver and bullion and coin, and at the expense of the Swiss National 
Government, and these would ultimately discredit the whole scheme. 

Fourth. The time of discounting was to be not over three months 
(article 6 a and c). This is all right for cities, but farmers, when they 
want a loan, usually want it on land for more than three months. 

Notice further how clear and concise are the provisions of this law. 
He who runs may read and understand. When a matter has to be 
submitted to the people it has to be made clear. But let the Swiss 
people speak for themselves. Here are some extracts, both for and 
against, from Swiss newspapers: 

“A Simple Laborer” gives his reasons for voting against the bank 
as follows: First, because it is an arduous mystification; second, 
because, in place of making a bank for the people, they make a bank 
for the politicians, that will reenforce the already great tendency 
toward centralization, as indicated in the recent military laws that 
were rejected by the people; third, because it engages to an unlimited 
extent the responsibility of the Confederation; that is, those who con¬ 
tribute—the simple laborers, as well as those who have much land. 

M. Numa Droz, a Federal councilor, is opposed to the bank as “an 
economic error and national danger,” and gives the usual reasons— 
political power, booty in case of war, etc. 

A German economist, Hartung, is quoted. He compares the private 
bank to a vessel sailing well-known seas; the state bank to a vessel in 
unknown waters. He considers Swiss securities and national honor 
at stake. 

A “Proclamation of the Democratic Committee” declares that the 
approaching vote will mark a solemn period in the national history. 
The Socialist party stands like a single man in favor of the bank. 
But would you, for the sake of being complacent toward the Socialists, 
launch our country on a financial venture without precedent? It is 
proposed to establish a bank with power to issue notes, and which 
shall be responsible to an unlimited extent. It is to confide the power 
of disposing of the national credit to a force of functionaries, named 


235 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

by the political power. It will not furnish abundant capital; it will 
make money cheap. The law makes it impossible to make loans that 
can be hypothecated, and refuses agricultural credit. There is not a 
single amelioration offered to the agriculturist or laborer. It will be 
entirely in the hands of the politicians. Although these are services 
which it could render, there is not one of them that could not be ren¬ 
dered by a Swiss national bank, created by the living forces of our 
industry and commerce, and outside of political influence, but under 
the supervision of the Confederation. We stand for such a bank, 
with the almost unanimous approval of the industrial and commercial 
associations of Switzerland. All are implored to go to the polls and 
vote against the impending disaster. This proclamation is signed by 
various men, “in the name of the electoral democratic committee.” 

A set of resolutions passed by a meeting embraces the following 
points: 

Considering, first, that the state bank proposed confounds the credit 
of the state with the economic credit of the country; second, that this 
last can not prosper unless it has the support of the commercial world 
of Switzerland, which should have a large share in its direction and 
administration; third, that commerce, for the security and elasticity 
of its credit, needs a bank bill and not a state note that will be subject 
to fluctuations caused by politics; fourth, that the political basis gives 
the organization of the bank and the unlimited responsibility of the 
state over to the engagements of those to whose interest it is to cause 
fluctuations; fifth, that the central bank, projected by the union of 
commerce and industry, will have all the advantages of a state bank, 
and will not engage the finances or credit of such a bank. It is there¬ 
fore decided to reject the law, and to engage all the voters to vote 
“No” on February 28; to lend their strength against forming a Swiss 
national bank, to be the safeguard of a national credit, and for the 
economic and political independence of the country. 

The following is an almost literal translation of an appeal for the 
bank, issued by a committee. It is almost the only one in favor in 
the clippings received, and very interesting: 

Article 39 of the Federal constitution, voted in 1891 by 70,000 
majority, gives to the Confederation a monopoly of bank notes, by 
means of state banks under a special administration, or by means of 
private banks under the approval and control of the Confederation. 
This seemed a good solution. The Confederation does not take the 
responsibility for the notes; each bank assumes responsibility for its 
own issue. Although the law does not oblige anyone to accept them, 
the notes have become true money. It is a disgrace to the good sense 
of the people to have allowed the bankers to issue and put in circula¬ 
tion almost 200,000,000 of notes. The substitution of the state note 
is a question of order, logic, and justice. In the countries on our 
borders the banks have fallen into the hands of special persons. One 
sees their millions helping great industries and large speculations, but 
they do not assist the people. One should remember that the ques¬ 
tion of a state bank is not new. It is long since a large number of 
workers pronounced in favor of it, and they will again speak for it. 
A state bank will be a popular bank in the best sense of the word. 
Private banks will be obliged to follow its lead, and the laborer, the 
farmer, and commerce will profit. 

A great number of specters are flaunted at this moment. But they 
are the horrors of imbeciles—and those interested. 

Suppose we admit “political influence.” This is no greater in a 


236 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

pure state bank than in a bank supervised by the state. And have 
we not the fine example of our cantonal banks? No one dare say 
that politics play a part in the Bank of Zurich. The state bank will 
be organized, after being submitted to the people, in such a way that 
“influence” will be impossible. The administration will be given, 
not to ruined politicians, but to experienced financiers, under the 
supervision of the Federal Assembly. If it is a choice between the 
politician and bad financiering, we prefer the former. How do you 
expect to have perfect politicians while a few men have the money 
with which to buy them? You can not have sound private morals while 
there are certain poor persons that will yield to the temptations of 
gold. You can not have patriotism, citizenship, or a healthy nation 
while a minority of the men control the finances and live on the others. 

The risk of war and invasion are not greater for the state bank than 
for any other. In case of war, the military authorities decide what 
shall be seized, and the seizures include cannon, arms, horses, men. 
Why are you not afraid for the existing cantonal banks? There is as 
much danger for them as for a state bank. 

Bankruptcy is the hideous cry raised against the state bank by those 
who confound the state and the bank credit. We believe those per¬ 
sons who desire to limit the responsibility of the bank, and to keep 
the credits distinct, to be sincere. But they know well that tl# bank 
will make advantageous transactions, and that the profits will far 
exceed the losses. One should not be surprised at the eagerness of 
the capitalist to get his nose in the bank; if it were such a bad busi¬ 
ness he would quickly turn his back. Since he wishes to participate 
in the bank and make it a “ mixed ” affair it proves that the bank is 
good, and that is why we wish to make it purely a state bank. 

Up to the present the liberty to issue notes has led to bad results. 
It has been proved that such notes do not have the credit that would 
be given to a central bank. Besides, a central bank would render 
more service to the masses than can a private bank. If the state 
bank is not purely a state bank, it will favor the millionaires and the 
large transactions, and will not recognize the working classes. The 
state, on the other hand, will see every advantage in encouraging 
the large numbers of people who, on their part, will work for the 
success of the bank. 

All banks make good profits. The Bank of Vaudois made a million 
that was pocketed by the officers. They made it easily; it came while 
they slept. The adversaries of our project talk about dividing such 
profits among the Cantons; others are doubtful about the profits. 
According to the calculations, on the most modest basis, there will be 
at least two millions, 60 centimes per head, without counting the 
profits from other activities of the bank. And we do not speak of 
the profit on the monopoly of bank notes. No one can say after that 
that the institution will not touch each person. Our point of view is 
diametrically opposed to the adversaries of the bank. With a state 
bank the Confederation will pocket at least ten millions each year. 
This sum will facilitate the question of insurance in case of rest from 
work, old age, sickness, or accident. And this sum will also make it 
easy to solve certain cantonal questions. 

To create a state bank in which affairs flourish—this is our firm 
conviction—is to advance toward the creation of a federal bank hypoth- 
ecure (power to mortgage), so urgently and so long demanded by the 
principal organs of the agriculturist. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 237 

It is a most important step toward relieving the onerous conditions 
of the small farmer. 

Is it not a noble thing to replace our cantonal banks with a state 
bank that shall have power to mortgage? Ah! We understand per- 
i ectly the anxiety of our enemies, and their desperate fight against 
the state bank. Since 1871 to 1896 private banks have diminished in 
number, but have increased their issue of notes. During that time 
tlieir profits have been 33,589,040 francs, raised from the people, fur¬ 
nished by the traders in their notes—that is, by the whole country. 
This manna, which is not celestial, has fallen to a few of the bankers. 
The day has come to return to the people what is theirs and take away 
the privileges of a group of persons but little interested in their wel¬ 
fare. 

We have arrived at an important day; the vote will undoubtedly 
decide the course of action for years to come. The work of the state 
bank is due to men in whom we have the greatest confidence. 

Vote “Yes” for the state bank; it is consenting to dethrone the 
bankers, the financiers, and capitalism. 

Advance resolutely, affirm those who will vote “Yes.” 

Voters! Dear Fellow Citizens! 

Proclaim once more our faith in a future of prosperity and justice. 

Let our word be 

The bank to the people! 

Long Live the Swiss Confederation! 

In the name of the sections of Grutli. 

The Sections of Geneva. 

The matter is well summed up in a letter from M. Philip Jamin to 
the writer. He says: 

The state bank has been rejected by 244,219 no and 194,465 yes. This result 
has surprised both advocates and adversaries. Two days before the election one 
of the most clever chiefs in its advocacy said it would carry by a majority of 10,000 
votes, and some even went so far as to prophesy 40,000 majority. Although the 
campaign against led by capital was conducted with great vigor, the bankers were 
doubtful of the result. 

By the significant number of signatures (83,000) on the referendum petition, one 
might have guessed the refusal if one had not learned that a certain number of 
signatures had been obtained by pressure made by the rich on poor electors. A 
newspaper inNeuchatel has demonstrated this fact, and it is now proof of the 
necessity of substituting the obligatory for the optional referendum. 

The majority who rejected the law are not strong enough to discourage its advo¬ 
cates. The law will be remodeled by the legislature and made less “etatiste,” 
or centralizing, but its great lines will remain, and in a short time a new project 
will be presented to the people and likely accepted. Such has been the fate of 
many reforms in the past, and one may predict that it will be so for the state bank. 

The enormous profits realized so easily by private banks have been published; 
the harm done in certain circumstances to the resources of the country by the 
banks is well known. In 1870 the Bank of Porrentrug alone realized in one day 
600,000 francs profit in exporting bullion collected in Switzerland, while at the 
same time the Federal treasury was obliged, in order to feed the public coffers, to 
buy English pounds, paying 25 francs 25 centimes. The Bank of Lucerne in 1896 
gave to its shareholders 17 per cent interest. 

Per inhabitant 22 francs specie and 60 francs in bank notes circulate through 
Switzerland, and the 60 francs in bank notes are an enormous advantage to the 
banks and make them a privileged class. The cantonal banks are nothing else 
than small State banks. The cantonal banks of Fribourg, of Lausanne, of Thur- 
govie, and others realize large profits, and a part of these profits are deposited in 
the hands of the Cantons. Thus, in Fribourg a large sum—800,000 francs—made 
by the cantonal bank, has been appropriated to the university, and this bank of 
Fribourg realized 915,612 francs clear profit in 1896. The knowledge of these 


238 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


things acquired by the people during the debates on this referendum can not fail 
to act advantageously in the future. 

The present system has resisted the innovators, but it would be a mistake to 
conclude that it will still last a long time, notwithstanding the negative majority 
of 52,654 votes. 

The only American comment which seemed written by one who 
grasped the situation, and which I have seen, was in the Chicago 
Times-Herald, which concludes: 

The people have carefully considered every subject which has been brought to 
their attention, and have seldom made mistakes. Unusually good, sound political 
economy has triumphed, as was the case in the referendum in the matter of a 
government bank. 

In looking over the vote by Cantons, it is significant that the 
affirmative majorities came from the more progressive Cantons, and 
those with large cities and with cantonal banks, such as Zurich, 
Berne, Thurgovie, Argovie, and the negative majorities came from 
the more backward and Catholic Cantons, such as Fribourg, Yaud, 
Valais, Neuchatel, and the smaller or country Cantons, such as Uri, 
Schwytz, Zug. This last shows that it was not an agrarian measure. 
Including the half Cantons, 16 Cantons voted against and 9 in favor. 
In Geneva, out of 13,090 voters, 12,877 voted, or over 98 per cent, 
showing that a measure can bring out almost all the people. 

In conclusion, this is an admirable instance of the genesis of a 
purely democratic movement. It is advocated for some years by the 
Radicals, is brought up for discussion and a voting in 1891 against 
the opposition of Government and mixed with some crude and bad 
features. It is defeated, but the agitation is continued, and the dis¬ 
cussion gradually eliminates the crude and ultra-Radical features, 
until finally the principle either captures the Government, or they, 
finding the movement is becoming very strong, strive to capture it, 
and draw up a scheme too centralizing and too conservative and sub¬ 
mit it to the people, who, despite that it is a Government scheme, 
reject it. But, as Mr. Jamin says, this scheme, with its bad features 
eliminated, will probably be referred to the people within the near 
future and adopted. Meanwhile many Cantons have been making 
experiments in control of state banks. Can progress be made in any 
safer and better method? 

Thanks to M. Philip Jamin, of Geneva, copies of the law submitted, 
the ballot, pamphlets on each side, newspaper clippings, and other 
information have been received. Thanks are due to Hon. Ernest H. 
Crosby, of the New York bar, for the English digest of the law used, 
and to Miss Ella Levin, of New York, and Mr. Walter Breen, of 
Omaha, for translations of the French and German matter from which 
extracts are given. 


Appendix No. 40. 

[From the American Federationist, a monthly published in Washington. D. C., of July and 
August, 1896. Condensed.] 

DIRECT LEGISLATION DEFENDED. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.] 

Two attacks have recently been made on direct legislation, one by 
A. Lawrence Lowell, of Boston, Mass., in the October (1895) Inter¬ 
national Journal of Ethics, and the other by J. R. MacDonald, a 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


239 


lecturer at Clifford’s Inn, London, England, before the Fabian Society, 
and reported by himself in the Weekly Times and Echo, of London, 
of November 17, 1895. 

It is evident that most of the facts used by the latter are drawn 
from the former. In my opinion, the logic in both of these attacks is 
faulty, and after careful investigation, including statements from 
authorities on the ground, I am sure that many of the facts on which 
the argument is based are not true. They are intentional misstate¬ 
ments, as one can readily see, where a person who has not thoroughly 
studied would be deceived. These misstatements are of the worst 
kind, as they are half truths and appear as the truth on the surface. 
Mr. MacDonald’s are the most gross, but Mr. Lowell’s, as the careful 
work of a scholar appearing in a magazine of acknowledged standing, 
are the most blameworthy. 

Direct legislation, as its name implies, is the direct lawmaking by 
the people interested. It has been called the “delirium tremeUs of 
democracy,” because it carries democracy to its logical and final con¬ 
clusion. This is a suitable name for it to those who do not believe in 
democracy and who think it a disease from which the body politic will 
either die or recover. 

The optional referendum, which is generally known in this country 
by the name of referendum alone, and that word will be so used in 
the rest of this paper, is used very largely in this country in State 
and local matters. I place the local-option laws, so common all over 
the Union, under this head, despite what Mr. Lowell says, that “it 
becomes a law without regard to their wishes, and the question of its 
application in any district is decided solely by the voters of that dis¬ 
trict. Such a system is, therefore, only a method of local self- 
government.” The last statement is correct, and that is just what 
direct legislation is. But how Mr. Lowell can say “it becomes a law 
without regard to their wishes,” when it can be applied or not, as the 
voters wish, I can not see. The latter part contradicts the first. The 
tendency to thus submit questions to the people is growing, both in 
number of the issues submitted and in variety and in importance of 
these issues. 

Mr. Lowell says: 

The history of popular voting in Switzerland reveals a marked tendency to reject 
radical measures. * * * Strange as it may seem, the tendency to reject radical 
projects applies to labor laws and other measures designed to improve the condition 
of the working classes. * * * In 1870 the people of Zurich rejected a cantonal 
law which reduced the period of work in factories to twelve hours a day, etc. 

This last is true. The reasons for this rejection are given to me by 
Hon. Charles Burkly, of Zurich, who has been in the legislative coun¬ 
cil,. and who is still working for the people, although 73 years old. He 
says: 

The reasons for this rejection are manifold. First, a great number of industrial 
workingmen only worked twelve hours anyway, and a large part of them, if not 
a majority, worked only eleven, ten and a-half, and ten hours. These, of course, 
voted “No,” fearing that such an ugly legal working-day might lengthen their 
working time. Second, the poor, half-starved weavers and spinners feared a reduc¬ 
tion of wages, as their masters authoritatively told them would be the case; and, 
third, the bulk of the peasantry, being impartial and not at all concerned, would 
not force it on the city workers when it was very evident that they did not want it. 
So that only 18,216 voted “ yes,” and 26,983 voted “no.” 

When workingmen, who work less than twelve hours, vote against 
a twelve-hour day, it puts an entirely different face on the vote than 

8. Doc. 26-48 


240 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


to state the bald fact. It also shows how a half truth is the worst 
kind of misstatement. 

Mr. MacDonald says again: “In 1877, rejection of a similar Federal 
law,” and Mr. Lowell makes the same assertion. This is not true. In 
1877 the Swiss people accepted a law fixing eleven hours as the legal 
working-day, by a vote of 181,204 “yes” against 170,857 “no,” and 
in Zurich the vote was 26,443 “yes” and 26,492 “no,” a slight majority 
for rejection. These facts were published in the Direct Legislation 
Record for September, 1894, and in German in the book entitled Initi¬ 
ative and Referendum, bjMierr Heinrich Stulsi, the Zurich secretary of 
state. Such a misstatement might be expected in a newspaper article, 
but not by a scholar in a magazine of standing. 

To show the popular feeling about the working-day, it is only nec¬ 
essary to state that the first normal working-day legally fixed on the 
Continent of Europe was enacted in 1864, in the Canton of Glarus, by 
the lands-gemeinde, or by direct legislation. Also in Zurich, on 
August 12, 1894, a law for protecting female workers to ten hours a 
day was adopted by a vote of about 45,000 “yes” against about 
11,000 “no.” 

Mr. Lowell says that in 1878 they rejected a law establishing a school 
of weaving, and, “moreover, they have repeatedly rejected measures 
for increasing the amount of education in the public schools (1872, 
1885, 1888, and 1891), and they have refused to sanction bills to pro¬ 
vide free text-books for the children (1887 and 1888).” These facts 
are true, because, as Mr. Burkly says: 

Our peasantry and factory hands are too poor to send their children to school 
two years longer, as these laws of 1872, 1885, 1888, and 1891 intended. They do 
like the English gentlemen in Parliament, who do not make laws against their 
own interest. Our peasants said: “It’s all very well and we’re grateful for the 
good meaning, but we are not rich enough to do it, and therefore we reject it.” 

Yet the Canton of Zurich and its communes (municipalities) spend 
yearly (1892) 6,500,000 francs (about $1,300,000) for education, and 
the population is about 350,000 (the census of 1888 shows 338,580). 
This is an average of $3.71 per head of population. According to the 
Statesman’s Year-Book, an acknowledged authority, there was spent 
on education in Italy in 1887-88, by the state, 41,000,000 lire; in 1886, 
by the provinces, 5,000,000 lire, and by the communes in the same 
year, 62,000,000, or a total of 108,000,000 lire, which is, in round 
figures, $21,600,000, or, reckoning the population at 30,000,000 (it was 
30,565,253 in 1888), this would be 72 cents per head. 

Following the same method, using facts obtained from the same 
authority, one finds that Prussia pays 57 cents per unit of population 
for education; Wurttemberg, 55 cents; France, 74 cents; the United 
States, just under $2, and, using facts furnished by David A. Wells in 
Recent Economic Changes, Great Britain and Ireland pay $1.45. It 
strikes me that it will hardly do for an Englishman, or even an Amer¬ 
ican, to throw stones, as far as educational matters are concerned, at 
the “ mobocracy ” of Zurich. Switzerland is a poor country compared 
with either England or the United States, yet the Canton of Zurich, 
under the referendum which Mr. Lowell says “has purely a negative 
effect,” and which Mr. MacDonald calls the “phylloxera of legisla¬ 
tion,” spends in proportion to its population nearly double the amount 
spent in Mr. Lowell’s country for education, and more than two and 
a half times the amount spent in Mr. MacDonald’s home, and from 
four to six times the amount spent in surrounding countries. 

Also remember that Zurich has the obligatory referendum, and 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


241 


every one of these laws appropriating these large amounts for educa¬ 
tion has been approved by the people. Therefore, they must be cred¬ 
ited with knowing a good thing. And it is no wonder that among 
all of the laws submitted to the people some could be found which, 
while good in themselves, were too expensive for the people to adopt. 
Likely these laws were passed by the legislative body just so that 
they could get the opinion of the people on this question of expense 
and heavier taxes. 

The same thing is true of factory and labor legislation, in which 
Zurich, as being one of the principal manufacturing cantons, is pre¬ 
eminent, and in which Switzerland as a whole is abreast if not ahead 
of the most advanced parts of the United States or Great Britain. 

Mr. MacDonald says: “The most reactionary and backward can¬ 
tons use the referendum the most.” “The contrary is true,” writes 
Mr. Burkly. “The most reactionary canton, Freiburg, has not yet 
got the referendum—the only canton in Switzerland with neither the 
referendum nor initiative.” 

Again, Mr. Lowell says: 

The required number of voters demanded an amendment to the national con¬ 
stitution forbidding the slaughter of animals by bleeding, a measure whose real 
object was not to prevent cruelty, but to harass the Jews. The federal assembly 
urged the rejection of the bill, as opposed to the principles of religious liberty 
guaranteed by the constitution, but it was nevertheless enacted by popular vote. 

This is a tissue of misstatements. This measure was formulated 
and urged by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 
It does not forbid the bleeding of animals to death if they are first 
rendered insensible. It does forbid their being bled to death without 
being first rendered insensible. It was not done to harass the Jews, 
who numbered only 8,000 in a population of between three and four 
million. The statement of the numbers at once disproves this. Also 
the fact that animals are still slaughtered according to the Talmudic 
customs, although they must first be rendered insensible. Later on 
Mr. Lowell refers to this “petty persecution of the Jews.” A scholar 
should not state as facts things which are so easily proved as false by 
the publications already mentioned and in others. 

Mr. MacDonald states that “the referendum has also declared 
against a progressive income tax.” I have a full list of the federal 
votings and also statements of many other votings. There has been 
no such declaration in the federal votings and none to my knowledge 
in the cantonal votings. In 1878 a petition was circulated for a refer¬ 
endum on a law imposing a graduated income tax on men formerly 
exempted. This petition did not get the requisite number of signa¬ 
tures, and the law went into effect without the referendum. If Mr. 
MacDonald will turn to the United States Consular Reports, Nos. 99 
and 100, he will find a statement of the taxation in Switzerland by 
which he will see that not only is there a progressive income tax in the 
whole of Switzerland, but also in the cantons of Basle, Berne, Zurich, 
Aurgan, and St. Galle. The other Cantons are not mentioned, but I 
understand that almost all of them have a progressive income tax, 
and he will find that not only are the income taxes progressive, but 
that the property, inheritance, and various other forms of taxation 
are also progressive. If he will turn to the Direct Legislation Record 
for September, 1894, he will find that they have probably the best sys¬ 
tems of taxation in the world. With these facts before me, I can 
S. Doc. 340-16 



242 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

only believe Mr. MacDonald’s statement an error, the same as other 
statements of his. 

Further on Mr. MacDonald says: 

The last referendum but one declares against the establishment of a State match 
factory and in favor of the right of individuals to produce fossy jaw. 

I have recently received full information from Mr. Philip Jamin, of 
Geneva, relative to this voting, and if Mr. MacDonald had taken the 
pains to find out the facts he never would have made the misstate¬ 
ments quoted. There is a law in Switzerland forbidding the use of 
phosphorus in match making, as the workmen suffer terribly from 
necrose or fossy jaw. When this was enforced the death from necrose 
almost stopped. The match factories have not been profitable for 
some time, so their owners have desired their purchase and operation 
by the State, and the humanitarian grounds on which it has been 
urged have been only a blind through which the people saw, and they 
defeated the project. Mr. Jamin clearly states the case as follows: 

Among the partisans of the law one finds: First, the makers of matches, 
delighted at the prospect of selling for ready money those factories which were 
not prospering. Second, those voters who, not realizing the progress which had 
been made, thought that to give the business into the hands of the Government 
was the only way to protect the health of the workers. Third, those who hoped 
to find through the creation of this monopoly places as inspectors, directors, sub¬ 
inspectors, etc. Fourth, an important number of voters—socialists—who regard 
every bit of centralization in the hands of the Government as a step toward social¬ 
ism. Fifth, the rulers and the troops who obey them blindly. The opposition 
counts in its ranks: First, the men who know that matches can be made without 
phosphorus, and that a serious application of the law would prevent the return 
of necrose, but that, for their own purposes, the rulers have for some time failed to 
enforce the law. The nonapplication of the law has resulted in the return of 
necrose, which formerly had nearly disappeared. Second, voters wno oppose on 
principle any extension of the federal powers. Third, many socialists who regard 
the development of officialism as a farce. In a word, the true inwardness of this 
vote is an effort on the part of the Government to increase the resources of the 
treasury, but the bait held out was the security of the workers’ health. 

And so I might go through several other misstatements, showing 
how they are directly contrary to the facts. But these already given 
show how easily a stranger to a people’s customs, habits, and needs 
will be self-deceived by short or incomplete statements. 

We must not presume to criticise another people’s laws unless we 
have the very fullest information regarding all of the facts which lie 
behind those laws and lead up to them. When even a scholar of Mr. 
Lowell’s standing presumes to say that such and such a law, which 
part of the Swiss people have said they did not want, is best for 
them, he must make out a very strong case indeed. It is the opinion 
of one bookman of a foreign race, reared under different conditions 
and with alien habits of thought, against the opinion of a majority 
of the people who are at home with all the facts and conditions. 

Mr. Burkly, of Zurich, writes about Mr. MacDonald’s article, which 
says that advocates of direct legislation are “reactionaries in dis¬ 
guise, inasmuch as in Switzerland it has in practice been found to be 
hostile to everything that is either democratic or progressive,” that— 

this last is utterly false, a mammoth lie, but it put me in good humor for a day or 
two, and all my friends, when shown it, laughed heartily at MacDonald’s verdict, 
“that it is not good enough for socialists or socialism ”—“the dangerous frauds 
which threaten us'’—“for the referendum is much more congenial to Manchester 
radicalism and ducal whiggery.” To be sure, we Swiss aro a quaint people. We 
Democrats are of the settled mind that a progress is nearly worthless if the people 
are unwilling to assent to it, because the time is not ripe for it or they do not 


243 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

understand it. Rejected laws are ordinarily accepted in a few years, if really 
good fcr the masses. We believe that the initiative and referendum are the very 
best schooling for the people. They are, of course, no panacea and have the same 
drawbacks as a republic and as universal suffrage, where progress is dependent 
on the intellectual standing of the people at large. But is a monarchy any better? 

Mr. Lowell, speaking of the initiative, says: 

Of the measures proposed and rejected at the polls, some were good and some 
bad, but they are of no consequence to us, for what we want to know is the effect 
of the initiative in producing legislation. The net direct result in Zurich during 
the twenty-four years has been the enactment of only three laws to which the 
legislature was opposed, and of these one was of doubtful value, about another 
the people seem to have changed their minds, and the third was clearly bad. 

And further on: 

It would be absurd to suppose that the popular lc ngings of the citizens of Zurich 
are summed up in the three measures to which this institution has given birth; it 
would be an insult to the Swiss to assert that they desired above all other things 
a petty persecution of the Jews. We are forced to conclude, therefore, either 
that the wants of the people are satisfied by the action of the legislature, and, if 
so, the initiative is needless, or that it has not enabled them to express their real 
wishes, in which case it is a failure. 

Let us eliminate from this paragraph the judgments by Mr. Lowell 
personally on the laws brought up by the initiative, one of which is 
already proved by the facts to be entirely incorrect. We then have 
a statement that the initiative has produced directly very few laws 
that have not been approved by the legislature, and these not of the 
highest grade; hence, it either is useless, as their wants are already 
met by the lawmaking power, or that it does not work. This would 
be a very pretty argument against the initiative if it did not overlook 
the very best part of the results of both the referendum and the 
initiative, the indirect results. Charles Burkly says: 

The best is what is not seen at all. Many laws, formerly unscrupulously made 
by the deciding representative or parliament, are not now made because of the 
fear of rejection. 

And the same is true of the initiative. Many laws are not smoth¬ 
ered, but are brought up for discussion and adoption because of the 
fear of an initiative petition. This recently happened in Geneva 
regarding the abolishing of the licensing of brothels. It was voted 
on at once by the people, and then the city council hesitated to go on 
with it until a local society for the improvement of lodgings threat¬ 
ened the initiative, when the lawmaking body at once passed the 
requisite ordinance. The initiative and the referendum have pro¬ 
duced far more than the direct results seen in the defeat or enactment 
of some few laws. They have produced lawmaking bodies which 
strive to get at and enact the will of the people; they have produced 
lawmaking bodies which are free from corruption. During the last 
twenty-five years there has been hardly a single charge of corruption 
against a member of the Swiss National Council. What other country 
can show such a result? It has produced a set of lawmakers who 
are elected year after year, even by voters some of whom are directly 
opposed to the opinions of those lawmakers. But they know that 
these men are experienced in drafting laws, and that if at any time 
they pass some law that the people really do not want the people can 
defeat it. During a recent election only two candidates for reelection 
were not sent back. Some members of the lawmaking bodies have 
practically life tenure. The people retain good servants in their 
employ because they know that these legislators understand how to 


244 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


draft laws properly, and that although these men may differ with 
themselves as to policies, yet they are good at getting out facts and 
will give the people honest advice, and should the people not think 
those things that these councilors advised the best for the country, 
then the people can reject this advice. These men are councilors 
truly, and also lawmakers, but no law enactors. That last rests with 
the people. So that the indirect results of both the initiative and 
referendum, which have been entirely overlooked by these critics, are 
the most important. 

Mr. Lowell’s argument is strangely full of a complete misunder¬ 
standing of direct legislation. He says: 

Surely a destruction of the limitations of our Government which would allow 
absolute power to be wielded by any group of men who could get control of the 
State would not be a benefit to the working classes. 

This is true. But when all the people decide on a law, surely it 
would not be possible for a group of men to control “ absolute power.” 
The reverse would happen. The trouble with our system now is, that 
by corruption a corporation* or group of corporations do wield almost 
absolute power, and direct legislation would prevent this. 

Again Mr. Lowell says: 

In a community as complex as ours legislation is a very intricate matter and 
requires a great deal of careful study. 

Rittinghausen tells how, during the discussion on the adoption of 
the national referendum in Switzerland a little over a quarter of a 
century ago, this same argument was brought up in a public meeting, 
and great stress was laid on the relations of the church and state, and 
that the common people could not possibly understand the “concor¬ 
dat” or document which fixed the connection between the Roman 
Catholic Church, and also the Protestant denominations and the State. 
A workingman raised his hand and was given an opportunity to speak, 
and he said: “ Let him who wants to pray, pay.” The people would 
likely cut through these intricate problems in some such common- 
sense and just manner. Our legislation to-day is made intricate so 
that the people can not understand how they are governed. It should 
be simple. 

Again Mr. Lowell says: 

It would probably be used chiefly in the case of laws that had aroused a good 
deal of party feeling and had been carried as party measures. 

It strikes me that this might be a very good thing, as partisan meas¬ 
ures are usually good for the party and bad for the people. The 
prophecy of Washington, in his farewell address, as to the evils of 
partisanship has become true. Direct legislation has preserved what 
is good in parties in Switzerland, but it has killed the bitter partisan 
feeling which is such an evil here. 

Mr. Lowell again says: 

The referendum * * * is essentially a check on legislation—a method by 
which the people can reject measures, but not in any sense a means of passing 
laws. * * * The referendum, therefore, could not produce legislation for the 
benefit of the working classes and would be likely to hinder it. The instrument 
designed for the popular creation of laws is the initiative. * * * It has not 
been a success in its native country. 

And he goes on in the same strain, overlooking entirely the fact 
that indirectly in forcing the law-drafting body to obey the people 
the initiative and the referendum have been great successes—yes, a 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


245 


success in the enacting of laws for the benefit of the working classes, 
but not for the benefit of that class when such a law would work more 
to the detriment of the other classes. The initiative is not a failure 
in Switzerland. If it was, the people would be willing to give it up. 
And letters from there and newspaper clippings inform me that while 
some of the politicians would gladly oppose and repeal these institu-* 
tions, yet not a single public man dare openly oppose them, so strongly 
is the feeling for them rooted in the hearts of the Swiss people. Per¬ 
haps Mr. Lowell knows better what the Swiss people want than they 
do themselves, but I doubt it. 

In his closing paragraph Mr. Lowell says: 

If the referendum and the initiative were instruments by which the laboring 
class could legislate for its own special benefit, they would be mischievous. Class 
legislation enacted by a class is absolutely inconsistent with democracy, which is 
government by the whole people for the benefit of the whole people. 

That is fine and true, but direct legislation is a means by which any 
class or group of people in a community, whether village, city, State, 
or nation, can bring up its grievances and its proposed remedy for 
such grievances, before the whole people for discussion, and then the 
whole people decide on the proposed remedy. The laboring class 
can force a discussion on some measure for its own special benefit, 
but it can not, unless the whole people agree with it, make this meas¬ 
ure a law. Direct legislation will prevent class legislation. 

The closing words in Mr. Lowell’s article are so fine, that I will use 
them to close this reply, because I agree most fully and completely 
with those closing words. They are a fine argument for direct legis¬ 
lation. But they fill me with sorrow, because I see that the scholars 
and upper classes of this generation do the same as they have done in 
all history; they build the tombs of the prophets, whom their fathers 
have stoned, with beautiful imagery of fine and noble sentiments and 
do not see the practical, common-sense method of carrying those sen¬ 
timents into effect, which lies right at their hands. Yet this is the 
history of the growth of democracy. It comes from below up, and 
not from above down. It is a growth from the common people. It is 
exemplified to-day in the adoption by the trade unions of direct 
legislation for their own use and their advocacy of it for govern¬ 
mental use. 

The following words are Mr. Lowell’s, and are a fine argument for 
direct legislation: 

If history proves anything, it proves that a democracy in which any one class 
becomes too powerful is doomed. Such a government is either certain to be 
replaced by a despotism or to degenerate into anarchy, which means suffering for 
everyone, and above all for those whose daily bread depends on their daily toil. 
If this country is to play a glorious part in the world, if future generations are to 
point to it as one of the great forces in the progress of mankind, it must make a 
success of democracy. Other nations may seek refuge under different forms of 
government. Germany can take shelter under her monarch: France can return 
to a Ca?sar; England can perhaps restore her aristocracy, but as far as human 
foresight can reach America has no resources but democracy, and to make democ¬ 
racy a success the classes must learn to understand each other and to have mutual 
forbearance and sympathy. If we do not learn that lesson, our retribution will 
be decrepitude and ruin, and that retribution will have been deserved. 


246 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Appendix No. 41. 

[From the Coming Nation, a weekly published at Ruskin, Tenn., No. 137, January 4,1898.] 

HOW IT WORKS—IT HURTS “PARTY,” BUT SAFEGUARDS THE PEO¬ 
PLE’S INTERESTS—IT FORESTALLS CORPORATIONS, BUT PRO¬ 
MOTES COOPERATION. 

[By J. W. Sullivan, New York, N. Y.] 

For abundant and convincing illustration of wliat has been the 
happy effect of wholty trusting the people we may turn to the expe¬ 
rience of another republic as gained during the last quarter of a cen¬ 
tury mainly. In that time direct legislation, in gradually broadening 
limits, has been adopted by Switzerland. Imagine not that Switzer¬ 
land was especially adapted to this political mechanism. On the con¬ 
trary, the 22 Swiss Cantons (States) differ, as the Encyclopedia Brit- 
annica says, at almost every point—social, political, religious, indus¬ 
trial, physical, and linguistic. The 3,000,000 Swiss are separated by 
four languages, by the lofty Alps, by intense religious sentiments 
which array the people in several parties, and by the traditions and 
habits of narrow provinces. Aristocracy, not democracy, is ancient in 
nine-tenths of what is now Switzerland. When the French took pos¬ 
session in 1768 but 1 man in 4 had a vote; half of its present area, 
previously parts of surrounding monarchies, only entered Switzerland 
in the present century; most of the old Cantons were burgomaster oli¬ 
garchies. So far from being a record of peace, Switzerland’s history 
is one of the bloodiest known to the nations. As late as 1847 the Swiss 
were engaged in a religious civil war. The sole foundation for Switz¬ 
erland’s reputation for ancient democracj^ is in the practice of a few 
of its forest Cantons. The obstacles to the spread of direct legislation 
in Switzerland were great and many. 

Forty years ago, basing their theory on the communal meeting of 
some of the Swiss States—which is precisety the town meeting of New 
England—some advanced Swiss citizens formally proposed an exten¬ 
sion of direct legislation to the States and thence to the Confedera¬ 
tion. These men, while pushing forward the system under the term 
direct legislation, also gave names to its two working principles, call¬ 
ing the introduction of laws by petition the initiative and a vote on a 
law at the polls the referendum. 

To-day Switzerland practices direct legislation in most of its com¬ 
munes, in all of its cities, in 21 of its 22 Cantons, and in the Confed¬ 
eration as a whole. In 14 Cantons it is obligatory—that is, every 
legislative enactment must go before the people. In the other Cantons 
having it it is optional; that is, if a legal public petition calls fora 
vote an enactment goes to the polls. In the radical Cantons (those 
having the initiative and obligatory referendum), besides the bills 
from the legislature and the propositions introduced by the initiative, 
every executive decree and every appropriation above a fixed sum go 
to the popular vote. 

The initiative is simple. A citizen wants a law. He may draft it 
himself. He draws up a petition for it. Others who favor it sign 
and circulate. The maire of the commune (township) certifies to the 
signatures. When one-twelfth to one-sixteenth of the voters of the 
canton (the required proportion varies in different Cantons) have 
signed it the petition goes to the legislature, which can not alter its 
meaning. It must be sent to the polls at the next election in the 


247 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

shape of a question, the vote on it being simply “yes” or “no.” 
Referendum votes are taken in the same manner. 

Zurich is the typical radical canton. It has 340,000 inhabitants, 
with 80,000 voters. Its legislature consists of one house, as in all can¬ 
tons. The body consists of 100 members. It prints no record, rarely 
listens to a set speech, knows nothing of bribery, holds two or three 
brief sessions annually, and passes less than four laws a year. The 
people, and the people only, have the veto, and they have it on all 
acts of the legislature. In this fact is explained the simplicity, econ¬ 
omy, honesty, and publicity of legislation in Zurich to-day. Thirty 
years ago its legislatures did as our legislatures do now. 

There is not a sinecure office in Zurich. Few vestiges remain of 
the confusion of laws, the public extravagance, the partisan feeling, 
the personal campaigns characteristic of Zurich’s old-time representa¬ 
tive government. 

One striking example of the economic changes taking place in Zurich 
must here suffice in lieu of the many that might be quoted. The pop¬ 
ular vote has transferred the center of gravity of taxation from the 
poor to the rich. Forty years ago all the taxes were indirect (on 
commodities) and consequently paid by the consumers—the masses. 
To-day 32 out of every 34 francs are direct and stay where they are 
put—on the men of wealth. Taxation is mainly on inheritances, 
incomes, and high-priced real estate—in each class graduated. Direct 
inheritances are lightly taxed; collateral or to nonrelatives, heavily. 
Every citizen pays an income tax—the average laborer about $5 per 
year and the millionaire at least $5,000. The income tax at Zurich is 
collected with as little difficulty as any other; every man assesses him¬ 
self, and as the property of each will pass through the courts after his 
death, subject to a fine if it has been underassessed, and as the tax- 
paj 7 er is in doubt as to the day of his death, he has a strong incentive 
to assess himself wisely. The rising tax on real estate catches a part 
of the speculative values. 

The referendum for the Swiss Confederation as a whole began in 
1875, twenty years ago this fall. It is the optional form, requiring 
30,000 signatures to call a bill passed by Congress to the 600,000 citi¬ 
zens. The number of measures thus decided at the polls since has 
been 28, 16 being accepted and 12 rejected. They comprise the impor¬ 
tant issues which engage the attention of every civilized nation—the 
tariff, railroad, money, and liquor questions, national, divorce, and 
bankruptcy laws, appropriations, capital punishment, and the like. 

I have time here for but an example or two of Swiss national eco¬ 
nomics. The ’Swiss post-office, besides the mail, manages the tele¬ 
graph and telephone, the parcels-post express business, the 300 stage¬ 
coach lines of the country, and closely supervises the highways and 
the railways, the last-named being owned by joint companies. The 
department clears from a quarter to a half million a year. Local 
postage is 1 cent, general; for letters up to half a pound, 2; a news¬ 
paper, two-fifths of a cent; a book of half a pound, 1 cent. Every 
rural commune in Switzerland has a free mail delivery at least once 
a day. At any Swiss post-office one may subscribe for any of a list 
of the 3,000 principal newspapers of the world, paying the clerk and 
done with it. A telegram costs 6 cents for the stamp and a cent for 
two words—11 cents for 10 words the land over. A telephone message 
costs 1 cent for transfer to telegraph. Switzerland has twice as many 
telegraph offices per million inhabitants and Zurich eight times as 
many telephone subscribers per hundred thousand as the United 


248 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


States. Switzerland has also more newspapers per million. In 1888 
Zurich had one telephone to every 40 inhabitants, or eight families. 
The telephone costs $16 per year; in New York $240. 

The stage lines, models of swiftness and cheapness, cover the coun¬ 
try like a network. There are more miles of railway in Switzerland 
than on any equal area on the Continent; the roads, because of tun¬ 
nels, embankments, bridges, etc., cost more per mile than any other 
in Europe; yet railway charges are within a shade of the lowest in 
Germany, the cheapest in Europe. No parallel lines are allowed, 
the Government locates the stations, a tax arises when the dividends 
exceed a stipulated percentage on cost. Swiss highways are the best 
in the world. Yet in 1848 when the Swiss Confederation was formed, 
every canton had its own dear, slow, and disjointed postal system. 

There is in Switzerland more manufacturing with imported raw 
materials than in any similar area on the Continent—cotton, silk, and 
iron goods made with no Swiss raw cotton and little raw silk or ore. 
Next to the largest chocolate factory in Europe is in Neuchatel, with 
not one ingredient provided by Switzerland. These facts imply not 
only active capital, but steady labor for the working classes. 

There is in Switzerland more voluntary cooperation than perhaps 
elsewhere on earth—cooperative farming, various forms of insurance, 
distribution on the Rochdale system, etc. Kropotkine tells us that 
the peasant on the shores of Lake Geneva is frequently a member of 
half a dozen societies for cooperative purposes. These facts imply 
self-development. 

There is in Switzerland, according to Swiss statisticians, less illit¬ 
eracy than in any other country. The constitution of 1874 requires 
public instruction to be sufficient, obligatory, gratuitous, unsectarian, 
and under control of the State. Every Swiss child is heir to the intel¬ 
lectual riches of the ages. 

There are in Switzerland more high-class educational institutions 
than in any equal population elsewhere—more universities, colleges, 
and free technical and special schools. 

There is in Switzerland, according to Mulhall, more wealth ex¬ 
changed per head than in any other country on the Continent. The 
3,000,000 Swiss consume as much wealth annually as do 15,000,000 
Italians; that is, the average Swiss eats, wears, reads, travels, and 
trades five times as much as the average Italian. Yet by nature 
Italy is blessed in soil and climate, while one-third of Switzerland is 
unproductive glaciers, water beds, and sterile mountains, one-fifth is 
forest-covered, and of the remaining half two-thirds is as cold as 
Canada. The Swiss until recently were proverbially poor. 

Compare Switzerland with Scotland. With 600,000 voters Switzer¬ 
land has 260,000 landowners, the land being subject to constant 
division through the inheritance laws, the farms now averaging 21 
acres. In Scotland 200 men own more than two-thirds of the whole 
land, and but four in a hundred have any ownership whatever in the 
soil. Large districts have for many years been undergoing depopu¬ 
lation. The landowners finding more profit in game than tenants, 
the Scotch farmers are driven to the cities or to foreign lands. 

Contrast the Swiss landowning farmer’s situation with the Scotch 
tenant farmer’s. The Swiss farmer’s wages for his labor are his crops 
entire; his taxes are light; his influence on his Government direct; 
his crops are marketed over Switzerland at cost of service for carry¬ 
ing. The Scotch farmer’s wages are his crops, minus a rack rent, 
minus tithes and taxes, over which he has little influence, minus 


249 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

monopoly rates for transportation. So the working Swiss farmer’s 
wages are at least four times the Scotch tenant farmer’s wages. The 
people’s law makes wages high, work plenty, and property safe, ends 
monopoly’s privileges, and opens up to the masses nature’s oppor¬ 
tunities.. 

The United States suffers in comparison with Switzerland. 

In Switzerland there is clearness on every political issue. Every* 
Swiss citizen called to vote for or against public propositions gives 
each issue its necessary attention. First things come first, and one 
thing at a time. So all is simple. In the United States campaign 
issues are heaped up in confusion, parties jumble together long plat¬ 
forms, these further complicated with the characters of the candi¬ 
dates. 

In Switzerland candidates are nothing; measures are everything. 
Rogues may be legislators in vain; the people’s check is upon them. 
Hence, Swiss newspapers analyze, explain, and foreshadow the effects 
of proposed law, enlightening the people, with no venom of personal¬ 
ities. In the United States we forget party proposals in party lead¬ 
ers; we guess at candidates’ characters, which we can never really 
know; we prostrate ourselves before party idols and party saviors, 
only to find them all common clay at last. And party we place before 
measures. “It will hurt the party” shuts out many a true reform 
idea. “It will kill any party attempting it” is from one direction a 
threat and from another a cry of alarm. 

In Switzerland the way is open for the general discussion of any 
reform which a small body of the people may propose through the 
initiative, and the line to which the majority has advanced toward 
refined justice has been accurately marked off by the referendum. 
In the United States we do not know where the people actually stand 
on any question, and until the managers of one of the two great, 
unwieldy parties, close corporations, admit a new principle to their 
platform it can not command the public attention given a proposal 
for law. Here is a monopoly in lawmaking, one that stands guard 
over all other monopolies. 

In Switzerland the lawmaking power is localized, not centralized. 
The commune asserts its right to local self-government through direct 
legislation. The canton, on similar principles, withholds its rights 
from the Confederation. Hence a few laws above the commune’s. 
In the twenty years from 1869 to 1889, inclusive, Zurich passed but 68 
laws, all going to the referendum, 50 being accepted and 18 rejected. 
Berne, with 530,000 inhabitants and 120,000 voters, averages only 3 
laws a year. The Federal Congress passed, from 1875 to 1891, but 
149 laws—9 a year. In the United States centralization goes on 
steadily, the encroachment of State legislatures and Congress on 
political subdivisions which ought to be relatively autonomous being 
more marked decade by decade. 

In Switzerland a majority is behind every law; who knows what is 
the case in this country? There a small minority, a twelfth to a six¬ 
teenth in state and nation, may protest through the referendum; here 
minorities are powerless. There the community utilizes all its public 
talent and virtue, statesmen out of office having, through the initiative 
and referendum, as much power as in office; here unless one is first a 
politician he can rarely be a statesman, and out of office he is out of 
sight and stranded. There no danger exists from violent social agi¬ 
tators, they knowing their exact strength in the public vote on their 
measures; here, in the din and uproar, it at times seems as if from 


250 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


this source the public peace were in jeopardy. There the trades 
unions ask for no favors from any political party or from officeholders, 
their own machinery operating through the referendum and initiative, 
sufficient; here professional workingmen politicians, often mere agents 
of parties, can carry dissension into the unions and cast disgrace on 
them in the eyes of the other classes. There partisanship always 
signifies principle; here frequently prejudice, tradition, spoils, or the 
choice between evils. There pure democracy rules, justly, wisely, 
progressively; here the people, asserting their sovereignty only at 
long intervals, are tricked, cajoled, betrayed by false representatives, 
until popular government has become a jest and the idea of a true 
democracy provokes a sneer. 

It is time to reconstruct the legislative mechanism now in use in 
our towns, cities, and States. Unrestricted representative govern¬ 
ment is an antiquated machine. Reform it, improve it, simplify it, 
by direct legislation. 


Appendix No. 42. 

[From the Progressive Review, a monthly published in London, England, of July, 1897, con¬ 
densed.] 

GENUINE DEMOCRACY IN SWITZERLAND. 

[By Prof. Louis Waurin, of the University of Geneva, Switzerland.] 

In the middle of this century the aristocratic regime in Switzerland 
was succeeded by that of representative democracy. The pure repre¬ 
sentative system, however, was not destined to last long. The people 
soon became aware that in the latter regime the country was over¬ 
ridden by political “coteries,” prone to sacrifice the general good to 
party or personal interests, and thus was brought about the develop¬ 
ment of direct democracy. Then appeared two institutions—the 
referendum and the right of popular initiative, to which has of late 
been added, as a necessary complement, proportional representation. 
The question in point was this: How to give the citizens a working 
power in the State; how to realize the government of the people 
through the people. 

There are in Switzerland three principal administrative organiza¬ 
tions : The Confederation; then the Cantons, 22 in number, 3 of which 
are made up of 2 subcantons, so that, taken all together, they make 
25 sister republics; thirdly, the municipalities. The referendum and 
the right of initiative are generally resorted to in the political life of 
the Confederation and of the Cantons, but are of less frequent occur¬ 
rence in the municipalities. 

The referendum is a negative right, allowing the citizens to annul 
the decisions of their deputies (“ mandataires ”); the right of initiative 
is a positive right, enabling them to force a decision either in the fed¬ 
eral chambers or in the cantonal legislatures. 

The referendum is either compulsory or optional. In the former 
case the constitution points out the laws or measures which have to 
be submitted to the popular vote; in the second case the referendum 
is appealed to onty when a law or measure causes a certain amount 
of dissatisfaction among the people. Then the malcontents request 
that the unpopular decision should come before the citizens as supreme 
judges. The citizens are bound in that case to sign a petition and to 
collect a fixed number of signatures, without being obliged, however, 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


251 


to stop when that number is reached; they often go beyond the deter¬ 
mined number in order to make a sensation. In federal affairs the 
referendum has existed since 1874 in its optional form, and is brought 
into operation whenever 30,000 signatures are obtained, not a very 
large proportion for a population of 3,000,000 souls. In the Canton 
of Geneva—to which the present writer belongs—containing some¬ 
what more than 100,000 souls, the legal referendum number is 3,500 
signatures of citizens. 

As to the right of initiative, it is similar in its application to the 
optional referendum. The federal or cantonal constitution determines 
the number of necessary signatures. In federal matters it stands at 
50,000 signatures; in the Canton of Geneva at 2,500. The citizens may 
content themselves by calling upon the lawgiver to prepare a law on 
this or that subject, or asking him to bring before the popular vote a 
bill already drawn up. 

This new development has been uncontrollable. It sprang from the 
feeling that representative democracy was but a sham democracy, 
and that in order to reach a thorough-paced democracy, viz, the gov¬ 
ernment of the people by the people, new contrivances had to be 
sought out, enabling the people to make their voice heard and their 
will supreme. Deep and lively must have been that feeling not to 
have been crushed in its germ; for many a year it excited the indig¬ 
nation of the most influential party leaders. The advocates of direct 
democracy were, as a rule, the members of political minorities, and 
especially conservatives, who have lately been joined by socialists. 
These groups were opposed by the radicals, the then masters of power; 
sometimes even by very moderate and patriotic statesmen, as, for 
instance, the sometime federal minister Welti, a liberal of great 
authority, who thundered against them. 

The innovators in their effort to escape from the sway of the leading 
“ coteries” were not to be intimidated, and they succeeded at last in 
getting the majority on their side. This evolution has been general; 
the popular will has shown itself with a remarkable clearness, and has 
triumphed over all obstacles in a relatively short time. And this leads 
me to my second remark: 

Direct democracy has yet many an adversary, but even in their 
opinion the case is gained. They admit that it is an evil which must 
be endured and which can not be got rid of. They submit to it. Not 
only would they not make a stand against the referendum and the 
popular initiative, they even avoid discussing them. What is done is 
done. Had the experiment been a bad one there is ground to believe 
that it would be difficult to find among the Swiss people in general, 
and among the twenty-five Swiss republics in particular, a majority 
to say: “We shall not back out from the prerogatives we have won! ” 
We may, then, before looking more closely into the results of expe¬ 
rience, state roughly that in the eyes of the Swiss people the experi¬ 
ment is a success and that they are satisfied with it. 

We should not venture, however, to maintain that direct democracy 
has shown none but plausible results. We m ust not expect perfection 
in human affairs: Where is to be found an unimpeachable social 
reform ? Democracy, for instance, is generally admitted by progress¬ 
ive men to be a decided improvement, but at the same time it is accom¬ 
panied with some drawbacks. Has it never favored civil brawls, pecu¬ 
lation, and demagogy? In all social questions the right principle is 
this, Will the proposed solution do more good than mischief? It is in 
the light of this principle that we invite our readers to stand. 


252 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


The referendum and the right of initiative are two aspects of the 
same thing. They both establish the direct intervention of the people 
in the management of the country. But here rises this very natural 
question: The Swiss people must be very remarkably endowed, trained, 
businesslike, to be able to decide knowingly on the various objects 
placed under its supreme jurisdiction. Some weeks ago, for instance, 
the referendum brought to its notice a bill of political finance of a 
delicate nature, since it dealt with the foundation of a state bank. Is 
it credible that the mass of citizens, the men who spend their lives in 
tilling their fields or in tending their flocks on the slopes of the Alps, 
the factory workmen and so many commonplace men, should be able 
to come to settled conclusions on questions concerning which specialists 
are often at a loss ? 

Surety it would be a strange presumption to attribute to Swiss citi¬ 
zens the knowledge of everything. Certain it is that in many a case 
they are obliged to take the word of their leaders. It is none the less 
true that, even in such cases, the intervention of the people is most 
often beneficial. Let us first consider the referendum. 

Who is not aware that often political bodies are apt to misconstrue 
the popular aspirations, and are dazed by their immediate surround¬ 
ings? They cease to be in touch with the people. They submit to 
personal tyrannies which pervert their own instincts. It is not rare 
either to see them truckle to certain bargains: “Vote for this and we 
shall help you in that! ” There may be still other dangers, such as 
promises made to the deputies friendly to a measure, to reward them 
in some way, as well as corrupt practices, happily rare but not unknown 
among us, and so on. 

The citizens escape such influences. They first look to the practi¬ 
cal consequences of the question before them. If they have any 
doubts as to the expediency of the bill which awaits their sanction 
they shelve it for a while. They give a negative vote, but with the 
idea ttyat the bill may be brought up again when its provisions will be 
more urgently required, or when it will be rid of objectionable clauses. 

Let us also remember that the Swiss referendum is a right of veto 
in the hands of the people. In the United States this right has 
been vested in the President of the Republic and in the governors of 
the different States. In this Republic the citizens assumed it, and I 
think they were justified in doing so. It is the essence of democracy 
that the will of the greatest number should be carried out, and the 
referendum does not permit that it should be otherwise. For the last 
twenty or thirty years of its working it has put out of the field many 
measures the effects of which would have been fatal, and which could 
not have been rejected without the referendum. 

Some years ago an ill-digested bill for nationalizing the railways, 
by which the Swiss Confederation would have been a heavy loser and 
a dupe, was thrown out by the people. The other day a bill estab¬ 
lishing a State bank after the Russian system, got up by the Swiss 
Chambers, had the same fate at the hands of the people. These two 
examples are borrowed from national politics; others of the same kind 
could be mentioned in the cantonal or municipal spheres. 

In presence of such considerable services the referendum may be 
pardoned for having sometimes been nervous, narrow-minded, brutal, 
and even obstructionist. Moreover, such accidents can be rectified, 
since the referendum can not prevent a correct idea from reappearing; 
and, after all, they are rare. The federal referendum was grossly 
mistaken in one case, when it rejected the bill dealing with the crea- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 253 

tion of pensions for the federal employees as letter carriers; but the 
question is only put off. 

In that subject we may confidently affirm that good outweighs evil; 
and we have not exhausted all the merits of the referendum. We 
know the great errors it has avoided, but how many others has it not 
prevented? It is the sword of Damocles over the heads of our Swiss 
solons, in whom it inspires a salutary fear. It is a precious safety 
valve for democracy. 

One of the former presidents of the Swiss Confederation, a moder¬ 
ate radical and a man of weight, M. Numa Droz, has written that the 
referendum has cleared the political atmosphere. With us it will 
soon be an axiom that it is the necessary correction of the represent¬ 
ative system. 

The following is another additional commendation; It has recon¬ 
ciled to democracy a number of excellent citizens who were formerly 
looked upon with suspicion because they did not share the ideas of 
the leading majority. Thirty or forty years ago such men were deeply 
downhearted; they agreed that they had nothing to do in their coun¬ 
try. Scarcely did they venture to enjoy the privilege of their electoral 
duties, for they were always beaten at the polls. The referendum 
came, and they saw their influence weigh in the scale. They have 
contributed to cause the rejection, often with crushing majorities, of 
what they considered to be a fatal legislative or administrative work. 
The electors have had to take them into account. Their former pes¬ 
simism has disappeared. They have felt that by striving to do their 
duty they may still be useful to the community. 

As regards the practical working of the referendum, it presents no 
difficulty. In the German-speaking Cantons, where it is compulsory, 
the questions are grouped so as to reduce the number of the polls. 
When a referendum applying to the whole of Switzerland is to take 
place, no difficulty accrues from the extent of the territory. Every 
elector votes in his “commune,” and the results are easily made up. 
At the close of the polling day the results of the referendum are 
known. 

The right of initiative is not as yet so much used as the referendum. 
It is of more recent date. For instance, it has only been introduced 
into the federal organism since 1891. A number of partisans of the 
referendum are not favorable to the right of initiative. 

The first one introduced into the Swiss constitution a police rule 
for shambles, and forbade the slaughtering system of the Jews. 
Then came another initiative that was not supported at the polls by 
the people on account of its socialistic character, the purport of 
which was to legalize the right to labor. Another attempt, a failure 
also at the polls, consisted in taking from the federal treasury a cer¬ 
tain quota to be distributed among the Cantons. At Geneva, where 
the cantonal right of initiative was introduced in 1891, its first and 
hitherto only use has been an effort to annul an administrative meas¬ 
ure concerning the social evil, and the final result has been only 
negative. 

The agitation it brings about is often of a violent character. Patri¬ 
otic men, distinguished statesmen, were thinking some years ago of 
doing away with it. Nowadays this unpopularity is on the wane. 
The right of initiative will be retained, and this is why: 

People freely admit that the first applications of the right of initia¬ 
tive tended to bear on questions of intricate complexity, since that 
institution was meant to compel the authorities to carry out measures 


254 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


they had refused to entertain; but this tendency will not last, and 
the initiative will find its proper level. 

Moreover, its first applications will not have been useless. Indeed, 
the right of initiative will have cleared the way of encumbering and 
irritating questions, and made the situation appear what it is. On 
the other hand, the initiative is in the line of democratic evolution, 
and if it has not thus far rendered great services, who can tell that it 
will not one day be an excellent defensive weapon? At any rate, it is 
a guaranty for democracy against the tendency of some politicians 
who are inclined to say, l’Etat c’est moi! Lastly, at a time when 
complete constitutional revisions are set aside, the right of initiative 
enables the people to carry out without any complication partial 
revisions. 

But might not the right of initiative have disastrous results and 
lead to serious blunders ? Blunders these may be, but not serious, 
because to-day’s blunder will soon be righted if the people be victim¬ 
ized by it. 

What may reassure observers against the eventual perils of the 
right of initiative is the duly observed fact that since the referendum 
has come into force, the people, taken as a whole, are wiser than their 
deputies, more independent, more conservative in the best sense of 
the term, and that the remedy for democratic evils is to be found in 
the extension of the democratic principle. On that point the case is 
proven. This result may be astonishing, but the Swiss have been the 
first to wonder at it. Still a fact is a fact. 


Appendix No. 43. 

[From Kosmos, a monthly published at Vineland, 1ST. J., February, 1898.] 

CONSIDERATIONS ON SWISS POPULAR VOTING. 

[By Philip Jamin, Geneva.] 

One advantage of initiative and referendum voting is that they lead 
to numerous reunions and efforts to bring the voters to a given point 
of view. As the questions submitted are so various, and subject to 
such different interpretations, humorous and pleasant discussions are 
often the result, besides serious and admirable documents for and 
against. The voter who attends these discussions, or who reads the 
journals and brochures, must be fully informed concerning the ques¬ 
tion. 

Apropos of the vote on the Jewish method of slaughtering, it is 
worthy of note that Bern, Basel, and Zurich voted almost unani¬ 
mously “yes,” while Fribourg, Valais, etc., compelled to do the bid¬ 
ding of their representatives, were on the negative side. And why ? 
Because in the last-named Cantons the questions are not examined by 
the voters. The councilor says “No! ” and that suffices. They vote 
“No!” 

In the Canton of Zurich, as in that of Berne, we were advised by 
our representatives to accept the law, but we made a precedent, and 
refused it. 

When it is a communal matter it is almost impossible for the politi¬ 
cian to present with success to the voters those points which would be 
sufficient for politicians. They have to sift their reasons, but that often 
avails them little. Often the majority of the voters understand the 



255 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

matter and vote with full knowledge. The irrepressibles in municipal 
councils have voted large sums of money which they could not have 
obtained under referendum. A vote of 2,000 francs for an official 
fete, in which many persons of fortune took part, has done much to 
hasten the municipal referendum. 

It is true that one who listens to a bell does not always heed the 
sound, and the politicians have not considered opinions different frorp. 
their own. In Geneva alone there are at least 2,600 voters over whom 
the politicians have no control. To-day the voters know how unsta¬ 
ble are political parties, and how little sympathy there is between 
them and the people. Among the so-called better classes this matters 
little, as the voters have the means of recalling their representatives, 
but in the poorer classes the representative lives at ease a long time 
after disobeying the commands of his constituents. “History,” says 
Pierre Dif, the most popular writer in the Revue de Lausanne, “will 
be hard on the rulers of to-day.” 

The Federalist party has lately been making its programme. Here 
is an extract from the articles particularly concerning centralization: 

Centralization, with its inevitable companion, bureaucracy, has always been 
the enemy of true liberty. Greater competition and the increased resources of 
the Confederation lead, in the end, to a concentration of power in the hands of the 
Confederacy and its officers, which would become a menace to our liberal institu¬ 
tions. Bureaucracy carries its consequences with it, as well as militarism, and 
these consequences are developed with the force of natural law. 

It is necessary to preserve to the Cantons and communes all they 
can do for themselves. 

In small communities the majority of the people, not politicians by 
profession, can easily take part in the Government and enforce their 
ideas. This participation in the public life is the great advantage 
of our democracy. 

The craze to imitate large States, an epidemic which has touched 
many people in Switzerland, again raises its voice, but we are con¬ 
vinced that in copying the centralized institutions of foreign countries 
we bring the attendant inconveniences without the advantages which 
a great power might hope for. 


Appendix No. 44. 

[From Direct Legislation Record, September, 1894.] 

SOME OPINIONS ON DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

Sir Francis Adams’s testimony may be given as that of all dispas¬ 
sionate observers of Swiss politics. In brief, it is as follows: 

The referendum has struck root and expanded wherever it has been introduced, 
and no serious politician of any party would now think of attempting its abolition. 
The Conservatives, who violently opposed its introduction, became its earnest sup¬ 
porters when they found that it undoubtedly acted as a drag upon hasty and rad¬ 
ical lawmaking. It has given back to the people of Switzerland rights originally 
possessed by them in most of the old Cantons, but partly or wholly lost in the 
course of time. * * * A sufficient period has elapsed to allow the people of 
Switzerland to form an opinion of the working and results of the popular vote. 
As to the moral effect, we are assured that it is admitted to be salutary even by the 
adversaries of democratic government. The consciousness of individual influence, 
as well as the national feeling, is declared to have been strengthened. * * * 
The application of the referendum, as worked in Switzerland, and the issues raised 
by it are so easy to understand, and in most cases, at all events, are so independ¬ 
ent of party maneuvers, that public opinion acquiesces at once in the result. 

S. Doc. 26-49 



256 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Extreme measures, whether radical or reactionary, have no chance whatever of 
being accepted by the people, who, while in a manner fulfilling the functions of a 
second chamber, have infinitely more weight than any such body usually pos¬ 
sesses, even if it be thoroughly representative and chosen by universal suffrage. 

In a letter from Zurich, August s, 1892, Karl Biirkli, the father of 
the referendum, said: 

All parties who formerly opposed the referendum, even the most reactionary 
and aristocratic, have declared, not recently, but ten to fifteen years ago, officially 
their adherence to the initiative and referendum, as a thoroughly good institution, 
deeply rooted in the hearts of the whole people. 

That there are here and there in Switzerland men opposed to the 
system is true, just as in the LTnited States there are some who mourn 
the abolition of slavery. The referendum, while never depriving any 
one of his property, has destroyed many an unrighteous vested interest, 
leaving the unwillingly democratized to weep over their past privileges 
and denounce the means that bereft them. 


Appendix No. 45. 

A TESTIMONY FROM SWITZERLAND, 

[M. Neuma Droz, ex-President Swiss Republic, in Contemporary Review, March, 1895.] 

Under the influence or the referendum, a profound change has 
come over the spirit both of parliaments and people. The idea of 
employer and employed, of the sender and sent, which lies at the root 
of the representative system, becomes an absolute reality. The peo¬ 
ple still choose their Representatives to make the laws, but they 
reserve the right of sanction. When they reject a law, in virtue of 
this sovereign right, there is no entering on a state of conflict, for a 
conflict can only take place where the exercise of a right is met by a 
competing claim; and there is here no claim to compete. The crafts¬ 
man carries out the work to his own satisfaction, the employer who 
gave the order is of a different opinion and sends it back to be altered. 
It is perfectly simple; each has done his duty within the limits assigned 
him; there is no ground for quarrel. The legislator is not discred¬ 
ited, he is only in the position of a deputy whose bill is not passed. 
There is jio question of resigning. If here and there a measure is 
rejected, others are passed; there is clearly no want of confidence. 
Moreover, after rejecting a law, it is quite common to reelect the same 
representative. Thus the new regime leaves no room for either min¬ 
isterial or parliamentary crises. The representatives of the people 
are elected for a comparatively short term, generally three years. 
During this time—thanks to the restraining referendum—they can do 
nothing really contrary to the public will; at least in any essential 
matter. * * * 

The people have generally shown themselves wiser than the med¬ 
dling politicians who have tried to draw them into systematic opposi¬ 
tion. If now and then they have voted under the influence of obvious 
ill-humor with their own representatives, they have on the other 
hand, more than once given the agitator clearly to understand that he 
had no chance with them. The net result has been a great tranquil- 
izing of public life. The debates which precede and accompany a ref- 
erendiary movement are a normal manifestation of the popular life. 
And when the ballot has pronounced, everybody accepts the result. 
Not infrequently the press, which loves to parade itself as the voice 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


257 


or public opinion, has been belied by the vote. Those who make the 
most noise can not here impose on the people as they do in other 
countries—they are taken for what they are really worth. Adapted 
to a people fundamentally democratic, like the Swiss, the referendum 
is unquestionably one of the best forms of government ever attempted. 
It may be thought good to modify it in accordance with the sugges¬ 
tion of experience, but there can never again be any question of doing 
away with it. 


Appendix No. 46. 

A WELL-SEASONED SWISS OPINION. 

[Translated from a report made in 1874 by Herr Kappeler, of Thurgau, on the popular vote on 
the adoption of the Swiss constitution.] 

I will content myself with calling attention to three features which 
augment the value ol this result. 

(1) The unlimited discussion preliminary to the vote, both in the 
press and on the platform, in the course of which opinions obtained 
expression either in favor of the constitution or against it. We note 
that no local authority nor party entertained a thought of opposing 
this free discussion. 

(2) The general participation of the people in the vote. Out of 
2,500,000 inhabitants, 538,212 electors cast their votes; hence 21,571 
more than in 1872. Thus to every thousand inhabitants there were 
214 voters. This is a real plebiscite. 

[At the time Herr Kappeler made this report the total number of 
qualified voters had not been determined exactly. In 1879 the num¬ 
ber was 636,996, which shows that in 1874 about five-sixths of the 
entire electoral body went to the polls, which gives a participation of 
nearly 85 per cent, or one of the heaviest ever known. ] 

(3) The quiet and dignified way in which the election was con¬ 
ducted, which sufficiently proves the political maturity of our people. 
Although previous to the vote exaggerations of every kind were not 
wanting, and although great heat was betrayed in several places, yet 
the great act was accomplished everywhere, we may say, with impress¬ 
ive solemnity. Throughout the entire country there was no trace of 
trouble or violence. 

And this is why this constitution has become not only formally in 
law, but in the most profound meaning of the word, in fact, the fun¬ 
damental law of Switzerland, a law that no party will attack, not only 
because no party will be able to attack it, but still more because no 
party will wish to, so great is the respect which a legal majority 
inspires in this country. This is the result of a long and wise enjoy¬ 
ment of liberty. 


Appendix No. 47. 

[Prom the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1898.] 

DIRECT LEGISLATION IN FRANCE. 

[By M. Ed Valliant, member of Chamber of Deputies, of Paris, France. Translated by J. W. 

Sullivan.] 

I am happy to learn that in the United States the direct legislation 
idea and its application are taking on a development which can not 
help but have a desirable influence upon us. France is a routine 

S. Doc. 340-17 





258 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

country, and it is never but by the example of other lands or by force 
that she enters on the road to progress and reform. 

Our league for direct legislation and revision by the people has this 
year remained somewhat stationary, all the most active members 
being much occupied by current politics, now more lively than usual 
because of the approach of the elections of May, 1898. However, the 
agitation and appeals of the league have popularized the idea of direct 
legislation, which, little by little, is becoming a demand put at the head 
of all programmes and commencing to claim the attention of all. 

On October 31 there took place at Dijon the fifth congress of the 
Socialist Municipal Councillors of France and the Colonies. At this 
congress the members discussed with much care the municipal refer¬ 
endum, and decided that the municipal councils should on all impor¬ 
tant occasions bring it into practice. 

This decision had been preceded by decisive events. Several months 
before the Socialist municipality of Dijon had, by way of the refer¬ 
endum, asked of the voters of their constituency the approval of their 
conclusion to abolish the octroi tax. This appeal to the people, ham¬ 
pered bj r the municipal administration in the name of the law, and by 
ministerial messages in opposition to the referendum, had not all the 
success desired, only a part of the voters going to the polls, but the 
majority of those voting approved the council’s action. 

Since then other municipalities, such as Lemur, but without being 
interfered with, their political opinions being their safety, have con¬ 
sulted the people on the question whether or not they should bear the 
expense of quartering new troops asked of them by the minister of 
war. 

Little by little the question of the referendum has made its way and 
its acceptance by the municipalities supporting the Government has 
had the effect to render the idea acceptable to Government politicians 
and newspapers, under the restricted form of a municipal vote in 
matters purely administrative, without political character. 

Recently the Socialist mayor of Marseilles, Citizen Flassiers, wish¬ 
ing to abolish the subsidy to the theater, opposition was made by 
supporters of the subsidy. The theater was closed and the municipal 
council and the mayor decided to have recourse to the referendum. 
In the vote the advance of public opinion was so well shown that 
nearly the entire press approved of the Marseilles decision. I send 
with this letter a characteristic article on the event from the great 
Government journal, the Temps, and also one from the Socialist jour¬ 
nal, the Petite Republique. We advance but slowly and only in the 
field of the municipal referendum. We have, therefore, great need 
of American and Swiss encouragement. 

There has just arrived the Petite Temps of this evening, containing 
an account of the deliberations of the general council of the Seine, 
sitting at the Hotel de Ville, Paris, on the referendum, and I send it 
to you: 

AT THE GENERAL COUNCIL. 

[From the Paris Temps, November 25,1897.] 

The referendum.—The following proposition, having a great number of signa¬ 
tures, was introduced by M. Chassaigne-Soyon: 

“The council, considering that in many cases our municipal and departmental 
assemblies, whatever their knowledge of local needs, may be uncertain of the 
majority of the voters (corpselectoral), resolve: 

“That the referendum applied to certain affairs of municipal control, and even 
departmental interest, and already tried in France with success in several cities, 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 259 

would often be the most simple means to put an end to tiresome discussions and 
to settle peacefully interminable local quarrels; and 

“That its application would have as a result the development of civic activity 
and the care of public affairs on the part of a large number of citizens, and to 
render to our departments (States) and to our smaller towns a vitality often lack¬ 
ing to-day; and that, moreover, the referendum exists already in our adminis¬ 
trative laws in an embryonic state under the form of inquiry de commodo et 
incommodo; and 

“It is hereby requested of Parliament to introduce into our lawmaking the 
power of municipal councils to interrogate the voters, by way of referendum, 
relative to economic and administrative questions within their province, when¬ 
ever the majority of a council judge its useful.” 

The proposition was adopted, after declaration of urgence, and sent to the proper 
officials. 

A FRENCH CONSERVATIVE OPINION. 

The article in the Temps, referred to by M. Valliant, is a leading 
editorial. It says that the Marseilles referendum has suggested to a 
Republican deputy, M. Argelies, to introduce a bill instituting the 
municipal referendum. The Temps says this referendum offers 
nothing in common with the plebiscite. It thinks the proposition 
truly practical, 'and that the trials already had in France of the 
municipal referendum shows that it has great advantages. ‘ ‘ It would 
be an incomparable means of education.” “It would teach the people 
the use of full liberty, besides their responsibility; for if they should 
make mistakes the fault would be their own.” The Temps says the 
French Republican party has once more shown that it is ready to wel¬ 
come such reforms as will stimulate the energy and initiative of the 
democracy. 

FACTS FROM FRENCH RADICALS. 

In a column and a half the Petite Republique outlines the progress 
of the referendum in France. It is encouraged to do so by an article 
in M. Waldeck-Rousseau’s conservative review, approving of the 
municipal referendum. 

In November, 1888, the commune of Clony “had the honor” of 
making the first appeal to the referendum to settle the question of a 
loan. Of 1,100 voters, 802 responded. A few months afterwards 
Bagnols voted on an increase of taxes and Riomon quartering a regi¬ 
ment. Then Bergerac went to the polls to decide upon the site for a 
cattle market. This movement of the municipalities alarmed the 
Government, and in March, 1889, a ministerial circular nterdicted for 
the future consultations of this nature. From 1889 to 1893 the refer¬ 
endum was not in practice. Then suddenly many attempts succeeded 
in diverse regions. ArgenteuiPs citizens voted on the date to begin 
the grape harvest; Neuilly’s on the closing of its annual fete; then, 
at the polls, Conmentry, Morlaix, Fougeres, Issoire, Pont-Audemer 
and Thiers decided on quartering battalions of troops; Dijon, on 
abolition of the octroi; Blanc, on admitting itinerant dealers; Beau¬ 
vais, on reestablishing the procession of Jeanne Hachette, and last 
comes the vote of a population of 400,000 at Marseilles on the Grand 
Theater subsidy. The Petite Republique quotes from the Revue pas¬ 
sages which show that in England Sir William Harcourt and in Bel¬ 
gium M. Beernaert have upheld the municipal referendum. 

“From the moment you accept the municipal referendum,” says 
the Petite Republique, “how can you reject the referendum for the 
affairs of the State? The hated plebiscite is a wholly different thing. 
We see no relation between the election of Louis Bonaparte and a 


260 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


referendum on a progressive tax or on tlie separation of church and 
state. Switzerland accepts the referendum in all its forms and in all 
its degrees—in commune, Canton, and Confederation.” 


Appendix No. 48. 

THE REFERENDUM IN ENGLAND. 


[By J. St. Loe Straehey, editor the London Spectator; condensed from an article in Cosmopolis, 
a monthly published in London, England, April, 1897.] 

At the election of 1895 the referendum occupied a certain place. 
The official leaflet issued from the central conservative officer, to 
explain and enumerate the items of the party programme, placed the 
referendum third on the list of Unionist aims. A firm imperial policy 
comes first; then follows a strong navy; third comes the referendum. 
The referendum may thus fairly be said to have emerged from obscu¬ 
rity into the region, if not of practical politics, at least into a region 
which is not purely academic. I venture to predict that when we next 
hear of a conflict between the two Houses of Parliament we shall 
again hear of the referendum. At present a referendum for deciding 
between the two houses when they differ is under consideration in 
New South Wales. Again it is proposed to adopt the referendum for 
this purpose in the constitution suggested for a federated Australia. 

People sometimes talk as if this plan of referring laws to a direct 
vote were a new-fangled notion, but in reality it is nothing of the 
kind. It arises directly from a very old principle in lawmaking—the 
principle that a law should receive the assent of the people on whom 
it is to be binding; that assent, of course, being given by the majority 
in the name of the whole. For example, when the new model army 
of the Commonwealth drew up its famous constitution, called The 
Agreement of the People, a stipulation was inserted for sending this 
body of fundamental laws throughout the country to receive the sig¬ 
natures and so the sanction of the whole people. * * * Here is 

the beginning of the poll of the people. It will be more profitable to 
take the referendum as we find it at work at the present day in Switzer¬ 
land and America. * * * In America the institution flourishes 

almost as much as in Switzerland, though under a different name. It 
is never officially called the referendum. 

Its chief advantage is that it allows no bill touching any important 
political problem to become law unless it has secured the assent of a 
majority of the people to whom it is to apply. It can not but be mis¬ 
chievous for men to regard the laws as insufficiently sanctioned—to 
look behind the law and inquire into its authority. But this is what 
men are very apt to do if they believe that a new law does not really 
represent the will of the people, but it is merely the outcome of the 
will of the majority of the party which possesses a majority in a rep¬ 
resentative assembly. * * * Another advantage is that it enables 

us in some measure to prevent that blending, or rather confusion, of 
legislative and administrative functions. * * * If a poll of the 

people exists it can return the best men to govern the nation with an 
easy conscience, because it knows that the poll of the people can be 
relied on to veto bad or unnecessary measures. * * * Perhaps 

the greatest disadvantage is the fact that it produces a sense of finality 
in political affairs. 



261 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

The advantages of the referendum, then, are: 

First. It reposes a right of veto in hands strong enough to wield it. 

Second. It declares the real will of the country, whereas a mere 
majority vote of the representatives may misrepresent it. 

Ihird. It prevents legislation by a majority of a majority. 

Fourth. It prevents legislation by logrolling bargains. 

Fifth. It to some extent gets rid of the evils caused by the amalga¬ 
mation of legislative and administrative functions incidental to rep¬ 
resentative institutions when worked through a single, supreme 
assembly. 

Sixth. It gives a final decision one way or the other on contentious 
schemes of legislation. 

If a poll of the people can be shown to have these advantages it 
may, I think, be assumed without much debate that it would be wise 
to apply it to England. * * * There are two ways in which the 

referendum can be applied: First, it can be applied compulsorily, as 
in Switzerland and in most American States, to bills dealing with 
certain specified subjects—that is, to all amendment” to the Consti¬ 
tution. 

Second. It can be applied on the demand of certain bodies—a 
majority of the Swiss Cantons can ask for it—or of a certain number 
of electors. 

It appears to me that in England we have at our hand a body 
exactly fitted to apply the poll of the people in cases where public 
opinion demands it. That body is the House of Lords. A body with 
such strong political traditions and instincts might be safely trusted 
not to abuse its power. Whenever they deemed that a bill sent up by 
the House of Commons was of the kind which ought to be submitted 
to the popular veto, they would add a referendum clause and the bill 
would at once be submitted to the electors. The House of Lords 
would thus become the people’s remembrancer. * * * As it is, 

the House of Lords holds and exercises the right of invoking what is 
in fact a clumsy, half-baked form of referendum. The ad hoc disso¬ 
lution is a referendum, but one in which the majority of votes cast 
need not necessarily prevail, and in which the issue of bill or no bill 
is mixed up with a hundred local, personal, and party considera¬ 
tions. * * * It can be urged that the Lords would only refer the 

measures of the Home Rulers, and that no Tory measures, however 
doubtful, would be sent to the referendum. This is a good objection, 
but it is not an insuperable one. I should meet it by giving an alter¬ 
native method, as in Switzerland, what I may call a reference on peti¬ 
tion. If within sixw^eeksof the passing of a bill through Parliament, 
a petition signed by 1,000 electors in 400 constituencies, or by 500,000 
electors throughout the Kingdom, were pesented to the Crown pray¬ 
ing that a poll of the people should be taken on a bill awaiting the 
royal assent, such bill should be referred to the people. * * * It 

appears to me that the best plan would be to follow the lines of parlia¬ 
mentary elections and to make use of the existing electoral machinery. 

Writs could be issued from the crown office to all persons to whom 
parliamentary writs are issued—that is, to the officer of each division, 
directing that on a fixed day a poll under the ballot and corrupt prac¬ 
tices act, so far as those acts are applicable, should be held to deter¬ 
mine whether the bill described should or should not be presented for 
royal assent. The electors would, of course, be all persons entitled 
to vote at parliamentary elections. The polling places would be as 
usual, and the votes would be counted in the usual way. After the 


262 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

poll had been declared by the returning officer, the numbers would be 
indorsed on the writ and returned just as the parliamentary writs are 
returned. 

I now come to the objections. They may be grouped under the 
three following heads. It is urged that (1) it is absurd to ask people 
to vote “yes” or “no” on complicated measures which they do not 
understand, and of which they like some parts and not others; (2) the 
result would be ‘ 4 too Tory,” and the effect would be to stop all reform; 
(3) it would upset our cabinet government, because if a government 
bill was defeated at the polls that government would be obliged to 
resign. 

Let us take the complicated measures first. For the life of me, I 
can not see why it is more difficult to vote for a complicated measure 
than for a complicated man. * * * The elector is asked to vote 

“yes” or “no” for Mr. Soaply, the Green candidate, as a whole. But 
Soaply is made up of a dozen opinions, of which the ordinary elector 
finds some good and some bad, some doubtful and some unintelligible. 
We all know that by a process of give and take the ordinary elector 
manages to get over the difficulty of voting for Soaply, be he ever so 
complicated a man. Why, then, shall he not vote for a complicated 
measure? 

Second. I do not believe for a moment it would be too Tory an 
institution and stop all progress. Reasonable reforms would be quite 
as likely to be accepted as now. But even if I held the other view, I 
confess that I am too thoroughgoing a democrat to make this argu¬ 
ment. After all, if the people don’t want reform, what is the use of 
forcing it on them? It is little or no use to trick a community into 
laws which it resents. It will be sure to find ways of evading them. 

Third. The most vital argument against seems the third—that it 
would kill the cabinet system of government. * * * It is assumed 

as if it were a law of nature that no government could survive the 
exercise of the popular veto. But this is a matter of convention. 
Why should not the convention be the other way? * * * In 

Switzerland no one thinks of resigning merely because of the result of 
the referendum. Here is what is said of a Swiss publicist, M. Henna 
Droz, writing in the Contemporary Review, March, 1895: 

The legislator is not discredited. He is only in the position of a deputy whose 
bill is not passed. There is no question of resigning. If here and there a meas¬ 
ure is rejected, other measures are passed. There is clearly no want of confidence. 
Moreover, after rejecting a law, it is quite common to elect the same representa¬ 
tives. Thus, the new regime leaves no room for either ministerial or parliamen¬ 
tary crisis. 

It used to be said that a new scientific idea was declared, first, to 
be impossible; secondly, contrary to Scripture, and, thirdly, some¬ 
thing which we have had all along. After this the new idea was 
accepted with entire equanimity. The referendum has been declared 
to be impossible. It has been denounced as contrary to the scripture 
of the Constitution. We now hear it said that we have always pos¬ 
sessed it in the ad hoc dissolution. Here, indeed, is a sign of victory. 
If the mood holds, we may see the twentieth century inaugurated by 
the first trial of the referendum in the United Kingdom. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


263 


Appendix No. 49. 


[From the Direct Legislation Record, June, 1896, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 
NEW ZEALAND. 

LBy Hon. P. J. O’Regan, Member of Parliament.] 

The first referendum bill was introduced by Mr. E. J. O’Conor in 
1893, when it was beaten by a large majority without debate. Mr. 
O’Conor was rejected at the election of 1894, and the writer, who had 
just entered parliament, introduced the bill. A lively debate ensued, 
in course of which the ministers averred themselves as strongly against 
the bill. On a division for a second reading there were 24 noes and 
19 ayes. The bill was thus killed by 5 votes. Counting pairs, the 
figures were 32 noes and 27 ayes. Last year I again introduced the 
bill, when it was carried through the second reading by 40 to 26, 
counting pairs. Thus an actual majority of the whole house of 74 
members voted for the bill. The ministers practically maintained a 
neutral attitude, one voting for it and one pairing against it, and the 
rest abstaining from voting. The reason for this sudden change was 
that public feeling showed itself strongly during the recess. 

There is no doubt but that the bill is certain to pass before long. 
At any rate I will bring it on next session, and if I can get it through 
the Lower House, which only accident can prevent, it is probable that 
the Council will reject it. But in any case it will be a burning ques¬ 
tion before the country. At the election, which takes place soon after 
the session, I feel assured a majority will come back for the bill, so 
that the future appears bright. The greatest trouble will be with the 
Council (Upper House), whose powers the bill proposes to curtail. 

The principle is being applied in several acts proposed and passed. 
For instance, in a bill entitled “An act to impose on lands traversed 
by railways constructed at the public expense a charge in aid of such 
construction,” section 5 read: 

From and after the commencement of this act the construction of a railway shall 
not be authorized until and unless the proposal to construct the same has been 
affirmed at a poll of all the owners of private lands within the betterment area of 
the proposed railway. 

And in “An act to authorize rating on the unimproved value of 
land,” sections 5 and 7 read: 

5. (1) The following proportion of the ratepayers on the roll, that is to say, 

(а) Twenty-five per cent of the ratepayers on the roll where the total number 
on the roll does not exceed 100; 

(б) Twenty per cent where such total number does not exceed 300; 

(c) Fifteen per cent where such total number exceeds 300— 

may, by writing under their hands delivered to the chairman of the district, 
demand that a proposal to rate property upon the basis of the unimproved value 
be submitted to the ratepayers' vote. 

(2) Thereupon the votes of the ratepayers shall be taken upon such proposal 
on a day to be fixed by the chairman, being not less than twenty-one nor more 
than twenty-eight clear days after the delivery of such demand, and such day 
shall be forthwith notified in a newspaper published or circulated in the district: 

Provided , 

(а) That such demand shall be deemed to be duly made on the chairman, if the 
notice containing the same is delivered at the town hall or other principal office 
of the local authority of the district; and 

(б) That if, within seven days after the delivery of such demand, the chairman 
fails to duly fix and notify the day on which the votes of the ratepayers are to be 
taken, then the votes shall be taken on the twenty-eighth day after the delivery of 


264 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

such demand, and the clerk of the local authority shall notify the same in manner 
aforesaid. 

(3) On such day a poll shall be taken in the same manner as is prescribed by 
“The local bodies’ loans act, 1886,” in the case of a proposal to raise a loan in the 
district. 

7. The voting papers for the purposes of this act shall be printed in the follow¬ 
ing form: 

“Proposal that property shall henceforth be rated upon the basis of the unim¬ 
proved value thereof. 

“1. I vote for the above proposal. 

“2. I vote against the above proposal.” 

And no such proposal shall be deemed to be carried unless affirmed by a majority 
of the valid votes recorded and at least one-third of the ratepayers on the roll 
record their votes. 


AUSTRALIA. 

The first large referendum on this continent was taken this winter 
in South Australia. There were three questions decided by the people 
on the same day as the general election for Parliament. The first was 
on the question of sustaining the present unsectarian education, and 
there were 50,600 in favor and 17,500 against. The second was the 
Protestant proposed alteration for Bible reading in the public schools, 
and there were 18,500 for and 34,300 against. The third was the 
Roman Catholic proposed alteration of a capitation grant to denomi¬ 
national schools, and there were 13,000 for and 41,300, against. The 
discussion and agitation was very active, and those disputed questions 
are now settled. 

The South Australian premier, who has a majority with labor mem¬ 
bers, is in favor df referendum on all important questions. Hon. 
George Reid, the premier in New South Wales, has declared his inten¬ 
tion of passing female suffrage and referendum before his term of 
office expires in 1898. In April the Women’s National Convention of 
New Zealand, assembled at Christ Church, unanimously affirmed 
direct legislation. 

In the Queensland labor platform occurs the following plank: 

“The submitting of measures for approval or rejection by the 
people. ” 


Appendix No. 50. 

THE REFERENDUM IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. 

[Condensed from an article by Lillian Toms in the Contemporary Review, August, 1897.] 

No less than five of the colonial parliaments were occupied in dis¬ 
cussing referendum bills during the last parliamentary year. In four 
of them—New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, and New 
Zealand—these bills were government measures, and in Victoria the 
bill, though introduced by a private member, was supported by the 
government, who had appointed a royal commission to inquire into 
the subject in 1894. None of the bills, however, became law that ses¬ 
sion, the farthest advanced being that of New South Wales, which 
was thrown out in the upper house. There is nevertheless every 
likelihood of the referendum becoming law in the near future, espe¬ 
cially as it is proposed to submit the Australian federation act to the 
popular vote. In South Australia, at least, it will be no innovation, 




DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


265 


for an experimental referendum on the education question was 
actually taken there at the time of the last general election in April. 
1896, in consequence of a parliamentary resolution. 

The constitutional interest of the Australian referendum lies in the 
fact that it is an attempt to incorporate into a monarchical govern¬ 
ment of a parliamentary type a highly democratic expedient peculiar 
to a republican and federal State. 

The great fact about the Australian referendum is that it is not an 
attempt to constitute the people sovereign, but to substitute their 
assent for that of the upper house should the upper house continue 
to reject a bill passed by the lower house. The government bill 
which aimed at establishing the system in New South Wales was 
entitled “A bill to provide means of legislation in case of disagree¬ 
ment between the legislative council and the legislative assembly,” 
while the Victoria bill went a step further and inserted a clause that 
bills submitted to the referendum and accepted by the people should 
bear the following style: “An act passed by and with the advice and 
consent of the legislative assembly and with the approval of the people 
of Victoria.” 

All mention of the Legislative Council is omitted. The New Zealand 
bill, which was entitled, “An act to refer to the electors of the colony 
certain motions or bills for their decision,” had a wider scope and pro¬ 
vided not only for a referendum when the two houses should disagree, 
but also that both houses might by a resolution submit any motion or 
bill to the vote of the electors. All the bills provided that when a 
measure should have twice passed the lower house and should have 
been twice rejected by the upper house, or should have been amended 
in such a way as to amount to a virtual rejection, or if the other house 
should fail to pass or reject the bill within a certain time, then it was 
open to the lower house to pass a resolution submitting the measure 
to the referendum. The governor, on being notified, would publish 
the law in the official gazette and fix a date for the popular vote to be 
taken. Thus provision was made for three debates in the Legislative 
Assembly before a bill should be submitted to the people—two debates 
on the bill and a debate on the resolution. In New South Wales before 
the resolution could be carried it had to be supported by an absolute 
majority of the members on the roll. This bill further provided that 
at least 100,000 valid votes must be recorded at the polls before the 
bill could become a law. The number was afterwards reduced in com¬ 
mittee to 80,000, but the clause is in itself interesting as an expedient 
to force people to vote. Copies of the law were to be posted in all 
court-houses and post-offices and schoolhouses for at least a fortnight 
beforehand, and in New South Wales copies of the proposed law would 
be given gratis to any applicant. The machinery used at a general 
election was applied to the referendum. The New South Wales bill 
provides that in the event of a referendum and a general election com¬ 
ing together, both should take place on the same day and at the same 
time. This clause has now been omitted from the last New Zealand 
bill, and it was expressly provided that the referendum should not 
take place on the same day as a general election or a licensing election. 
This bill also permitted the vote being taken through post-offices, in 
which case the postmaster would act as a returning officer. The reason 
for this is the great saving of expense. 

A clause in the New South Wales bill gave any fifty electors the 
right to appeal against the returns. 

It is generally provided that if a bill be negatived at the polls the 


266 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


question shall not be brought up again for three years. The New 
Zealand bill adds the qualifying clause, “when 10,000 citizens shall 
demand it.” Should a majority vote for the bill it is then to be sent 
to the governor for his assent, as if it had passed the upper house in 
the regular course of events. The referendum in no way affects the 
governor’s right of veto, except in New Zealand. There a bill accepted 
by the people is to become a law on a date to be named by the gov¬ 
ernor by proclamation. His assent seems to be unnecessary. 

The New Zealand bill further provided that both houses might 
decide to refer a question to the people, in which case the same pro¬ 
cedure was to be followed, but the people were only to be consulted 
on a general motion or resolution, not on an act of Parliament. Should 
the answer be an affirmative one, the duty of at once preparing a bill 
to give effect to such alteration or proposal devolves on the colonial 
secretary and must be brought in within ten days of the opening of 
the next session of Parliament. 

It will be noticed how very different the referendum as proposed 
in Australia is from the referendum in Switzerland. There the voting 
is chiefly on a bill which has passed both houses. Only in one case 
does the law provide for a referendum in case of a dispute between 
the two houses—when they disagree as to the necessity for a revision 
of the constitution. This has never yet occurred. The Swiss people 
usually vote on the initiative of a fraction of their number. The 
movement comes from below, not above. Nothing like this has been 
proposed in the colonies. The referendum depends on the option of 
Parliament. This form was tried in the Canton of Bern, but it did 
not work at all. The minority were always demanding an appeal to 
popular vote and the majority would never accede to their request. 

Though the Australians have gone to Switzerland for their idea, 
yet the system proposed is quite new and original. The arguments 
by its supporters are based on the defects of representative govern¬ 
ment in general and of the Australian upper house in particular, which 
obstructs legislation. In Victoria it was said that the upper house 
had rejected fifteen bills since 1891, and that a bill to prevent plural 
voting was rejected three times and the legal profession’s amalgama¬ 
tion bill no less than five times. In New South Wales it was said that 
the mining bill had been hanging on for twenty years. 

To sum up. The referendum is to be introduced into the Austra¬ 
lian parliamentary system to settle questions of dispute between the 
two houses. The people are not to be supreme legislators, but arbiters. 
The possibility of a referendum on nondisputed questions is consid¬ 
ered in New Zealand, but in that case it is not proposed to refer a law 
to the people, but a resolution couched in general terms and the reply 
is in the nature of a mandate to the representatives. For my own 
part, I do not think it will be often resorted to should it become law. 
The referendum is apt to prove a very conservative agent. Swiss 
experience has proved that the people are invariably opposed to any¬ 
thing of a far-reaching or radical nature. The result would there¬ 
fore probably be the victory of the upper house over the lower. At 
all events the Australian referendum is highly interesting as an 
attempt by five of the great colonies at the antipodes to solve the 
question of the upper house by substituting the popular vote for the 
second chamber. 


267 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Appendix No. 51. 

[From The Direct Legislation Record, December. 1897. A quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

THE REFERENDUM IN AUSTRALIA—CONSTITUTION MAKING 

[By Frank G. Tudor, of Hawthorn, Victoria.] 

There are five separate colonies on the Australian continent, and 
Tasmania is very near to the mainland. For years there has been a 
growing desire for federation to manage telegraphs, railways (which 
I am thankful to say are owned by the colonies), defenses, and many 
other matters which can be better managed federally than by indi¬ 
vidual States. 

Late last year each of the colonies, with the exception of Queens¬ 
land, passed a federal enabling bill, which resulted in ten delegates 
being elected by each colony. Western Australia did not follow this 
method, but Parliament (or practically the premier, an unbending 
Conservative) selected the ten. 

This convention met in Adelaide, South Australia, in March, and 
made fair progress with the constitution. Many say it is modeled on 
the United States Constitution, with improvements. The convention 
was adjourned to Sidney, New South Wales, where they met early in 
September, and have met every day for several weeks, often sitting 
twelve to fourteen hours a day. 

The first difficulty was over equal representation of States in the 
senate. That was agreed to, and then came the battle for the solu¬ 
tion of deadlocks between the house and senate, and for three whole 
days the debate centered around the referendum as a solution. One 
of the curious plans proposed was the dual referendum, by which a 
law had to pass both a majority of the States and a majority of the 
voters. The Conservatives prevailed, a national referendum was 
knocked out, but a dissolution of both houses was agreed to. 

Despite its defeat the educational effect has been marvelous, as 
the debate was watched with keen attention. It is felt by many that 
our future depends upon the work of the convention. Nearly every 
newspaper on the continent has published leading articles on the 
referendum and its effects, and I quote from a leader in the Mel¬ 
bourne Age of September 23, which paper has a larger circulation 
than the next half-dozen newspapers in this colony, and of course 
carries great weight: 

As to the vote against the referendum given in the Sidney convention, it is 
almost certain to be reversed in Melbourne if our delegates can only learn wisdom 
from experience. 

This paper has been the greatest educator in this colony of Victoria 
on all reform questions, and I have no doubt the referendum will be 
adopted when the convention meets in Melbourne next January. 

Our parliamentary elections took place on October 14, and the 95 
members in the house are entered as follows: 

For referendum in federal deadlocks. 57 

Against .... 

Unrecorded. 20 

95 

71 
24 


Protectionists 
Free traders. 


95 







268 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

For one man one vote. 68 

For dual vote.-. 21 

Unrecorded... 6 

95 

For woman suffrage. 49 

Against.. 29 

Unrecorded .. 17 

95 

For scripture league claims. 24 

Against. 51 

Unrecorded. 20 


95 

But if we take their views as shown in detail in the Melbourne Age 
we find that 77 favor and 18 oppose the referendum, and you may 
take that as the feeling here, viz, about 4 to 1 in favor. But we 
haven’t much chance of its passing the upper house, and all altera¬ 
tions to our constitution require a majority in both houses. 

Taking the election campaign as a whole, many persons have a bet¬ 
ter knowledge of the referendum than ever before. At all the meet¬ 
ings which I attended if the candidate did not refer to it he was asked 
a question about it. 

Sir. Tudor has sent a number of Australian papers, and clippings 
from them will show the strength of the movement. All through there 
are scattered notices similar to these first two: 

A meeting to hear the views of Mr. J. W. Billson was held last night. Mr. F. 
Tudor presided. 

The candidate said he was asked to stand as a labor candidate. He favored one 
adult one vote as absolute justice to the “ opposite” sex. All the objections that 
had been raised against female franchise had been urged against that for the 
workers. The legislative council should be mended or ended. He would support 
the referendum. This could be used for the settlement of the Bible in state 
schools question. [A voice: It ought to be dead.] If the majority of the people 
wanted the Bible in State schools they should have it. Another question which 
should come under the referendum was local option, which he was strongly in favor 
of. He favored a progressive tax on land values irrespective of improvements. 

Mr. F. T. Hickford, one of the candidates for the East Bourke boroughs, 
addressed a large meeting of the electors in the Alfred Hall. 

He said he wished to speak straight out from the shoulder, regardless whether 
he obtained votes or not. He was in favor of federation. The senate should be 
represented on a proportionate basis, and he believed in the double dissolution, 
and if that should be ineffective, in the referendum. [ Hear, hear.] In some cases 
the referendum would practically do away with Parliament. [A voice: A good 
job.] It might be a good job for some people, but not for members of Parliament. 

Some clippings from the debates as reported in the Melbourne Age 
will be interesting as showing how the matter is regarded. The debate 
is on the amending of the federal constitution: 

Mr. Trenwith. It should be of such a character that if a considerable majority 
of the people arrived at the conclusion that a change was necessary, there should 
be nothing in the constitution act to enable an insignificant minority to defy the 
majority and prevent the realization of the aspirations of the entire common 
wealth. An example which should not be forgotten was the extreme rigidity o: 
the American Constitution and the endless heartburnings caused by the impossi¬ 
bility of making really necessary alterations in it. 

Mr. Levien said the proposal was, as far as he could see, diametrically opposed 
to the principle of equal representation in the senate already granted to the States. 
It would permit of any single State being coerced and overridden in a matter of 
State right. 

Mr. McCay remarked that the member for Barwon (Mr. Levien) was the first 











269 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

in the house to refer to equal representation as a “principle.” It was nothing of 
the sort, but merely a concession held out as a necessary inducement to the smaller 
colonies to join the federation. The constitution certainly ought to allow the 
majority of the States to rule in matters affecting their own interests. 

Mr. Staughton contended that if the smaller States, which were still very dubi¬ 
ous about entering the federation, were induced to join by the offer of equal repre¬ 
sentation in the senate, their position ought to be kept inviolate. It would amount 
to inveigling them into the federation if the constitution were so framed that 
the States which had made no secret of their desire for proportional representa¬ 
tion were allowed the means of giving effect to that desire almost immediately 
after the establishment of the commonwealth. 

Mr. Gray supported the proposal of the member for Richmond. It was clearly 
unreasonable to give one State—it might be the smallest in the federation—the 
power to coerce all the other States by objecting to reforms. 

Mr. Salmon said it would be a retrograde step to accept the amendment after 
agreeing to grant equal representation to all the States. 

Mr. Maloney trusted the constitution would be made so elastic that it might be 
changed just as the majority of the people who had to be governed might desire. 

Mr. Carter said if anything were distinctly asserted by the attorney-general it 
was that there was no chance of federation unless the States were given equal 
rights. That being perfectly clear, the clause conferring equal State rights was 
passed. If the proviso in clause 121 were to be abolished, as proposed, it would 
be made possible for any State, after having come into the federation on an equal- 
rights basis, to have that right taken away. He would not care to go into a part¬ 
nership wherein the partner holding the larger interest could kick him out at a 
moment’s notice. If the government wanted the smaller States to join in the 
federation an alteration should not be made which would lead them to stand out. 

Mr. Deakin thought the proposition was almost a reversal of the decision to con¬ 
cede equal representation in the senate. To strike out the words proposed was 
equivalent to agreeing to equal representation in the senate for only a limited 
time. 

Mr. Moule said he would rather have even an indefinite expression on an explicit 
question from the people. 

The attorney-general said he had explained the inherent difficulties of the dis¬ 
solution method—the disinclination that members of the legislature would have 
to subject themselves to its risks and inconveniences, the dislocation of business 
and disarrangement of procedure that it would involve, and the uncertainty of 
the verdict it would yield after all—and it now seemed to him that the referen¬ 
dum offered a better prospect of giving proper effect to the will of the people than 
any other method. If there was one principle gaining ground, not only in Liberal, 
but in Conservative circles, it was that of giving the people a more direct and 
ready means of expressing themselves upon difficult and disputed x^ublic ques¬ 
tions. The referendum was inevitable. Its general adoption was only a matter 
of time. It was the height of absurdity to have two agents—the one the predom¬ 
inating agent, the other the restraining agent—and that when these two agents 
could not agree as to what was to be done with regard to the business of the 
people that the business was to come to a standstill. Would such a process be 
tolerated in any private business? The principle of the referendum had been car¬ 
ried in New South Wales, but the proposal to have a majority of the States was 
rejected. 

Mr. G. H. Reid, premier of New South Wales. Their duty was to so arrange 
the constitution that, in matters which were peculiarly national, the national 
voice should prevail, and that in matters which involved State rights the voice of 
the States should not be drowned by the national voice. When the federa¬ 
tion had settled down, and the spirit of the people had emerged, provincial and 
parochial distinctions would disappear, and on great national questions there 
would be no distinction between a voter of South Australia and a voter of W est 
Australia, or a voter of New South Wales. [Cheers.] He admitted that on cer¬ 
tain subjects the mass referendum would be wrong. That was on subjects pecu¬ 
liarly involving State rights. Just as he refused to hand over the destinies of the 
1,200,000 people of New South Wales to the smaller States on national matters, so 
he declined to hand over the destinies of the 300,000 or 400,000 people in the 
smaller States on the question of State rights. The misfortune of the dissolution 
of both houses and the misfortune of the dual referendum was that if a question 
arose in which the voice of the nation came into conflict with the voice of the 
States, all those complex, costly, and slow expedients seemed to him to resemble a 
series of ditches into which the commonwealth could flounder, finding itself at 
last in the biggest ditch of all. That was to say, finding itself at last, after infinite 
labor, in the same dangerous and the same envenomed state in which it began. 


270 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

He asked the smaller States to say what the State rights were which required to 
be so specially safeguarded that the rule of majority should not have its way. If 
there were such rights he was prepared to recognize them and put them into the 
constitution, where they could not be interfered with. 

Mr. Dobson. That is impossible. You must answer your own question, “How 
to prevent the national voice from drowning the State voice.” 

Mr. Reid. In any question where the rights of the States were concerned as 
geographical entities he did not see how anyone could refuse to put those rights 
in the constitution. 

Mr. Dobson. What about their rights as human entities? 

Mr. Reid. What was the distinction between the human entity on one bank of , 
the Murray and the human entity on the other bank? [Laughter,] If there was, 
for God’s sake, let them put it in the constitution. If there were any State rights 
which required them to distinguish between the people of the various colonies, 
those rights should be put in the constitution, because it was the only safety valve 
for them. [Hear, hear.] There must be a finality in the constitution, and they 
would be on the right side of the hedge by saying that the finality should rest with 
the people. [Cheers.] Could we not provide in great national exigencies a means 
of solving difficulties in a constitutional manner? He would put into the consti¬ 
tution every State right that ought to be safeguarded, and when he had done that 
he would ask his friends from the smaller colonies to aid him in providing that in 
all matters of national policy, in all matters of daily life we should regard the 
people as an Australian human entity, with no interests apart. [Cheers.] 

Mr. Isaacs. They had arrived at the decision that States had rights in conceding 
the principle of equal representation, and it seemed to him not unreasonable that 
State rights should be acknowledged: in the final arbitrament of disputes in the 
legislature. 

Mr. Higgins, referring to the double referendum, said he would have nothing 
to do with a referendum that was a delusion and a sham, which led the people to 
believe that they were protected by a referendum when they were not protected 
at all. 

A correspondent sums up the situation before the final vote as 
follows: 

Some form of referendum is essential, and the divergence of view among the 
larger colonies on the point as to which form of referendum should be established 
is the rock upon which the convention may split. Having secured the double dis¬ 
solution it will be questioned whether there should be a dual referendum, that is 
to say, a referendum requiring a majority of States as well as a majority of peo¬ 
ple, or whether there should be a general appeal to the people without regard to 
State distinctions. 

The great stumbling block in the way is West Australia. Sir John Ferrest has 
apparently no intention of coming into the federation at present, and he and the 
representatives of that colony are simply devoting the passive energy of votes 
toward shaping the constitution to a form that will suit them when they deem it 
advisable to join. 

The next day, September 22, the question came to a head, as 
follows: 

Mr. Carruthers then moved “ That if a conference of the two houses failed to 
bring an agreement the question in dispute should be submitted to a national 
referendum.” 

The committee divided on the amendment: 


Ayes....•„.13 

Noes......27 

Majority against the referendum .. 14 


The new clause, as finally adopted, provided, “ That in lieu of dissolving the 
house of representatives alone, both houses of Parliament may be dissolved simul¬ 
taneously, and if after such dissolution the proposed law fails to pass with or with¬ 
out amendment, it may be referred to the members of the two houses deliberating 
and voting together; and it shall be adopted or rejected according to the decision 
of three-fifths of its members present, sitting and voting.” 

The Melbourne Age, commenting on this editorially, said: 

It was hopeless to fight against a combination between New South Wales and 
the smaller colonies, and, after a vigorous protest, the Victorian representatives 





DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


271 


surrendered to the inevitable, confident that the whole thing will be eventually 
altered. In order not to lose the double dissolution, the Victorians in the end 
voted for Mr. Carruthers’s proposal, and after a half-hearted attempt to insert the 
referendum as a final mode of settlement, any further consideration of the dead¬ 
lock issue was reserved for the January convention. 

And the day afterf in a two-column editorial, said: 

That our local Tories should be in a spasm of terror at the referendum is quite 
in the natural course of events. It is an appeal to the judgment of the people at 
large; and such an appeal to the colonial Conservatives means something which is 
many degrees more dreadful than an application to Beelzebub. Hence we are 
assured, in columns of pitiful reiteration, that the referendum is a monster so 
dreadful that no British community can see its face and live. That it is working 
with admirable smoothness in the Swiss constitution has no weight with the Tory 
terrorist. And that the foremost of English statesmen and text writers have 
advocated the adoption of the referendum intcfthe English constitution in no way 
relieves it from being the pet bogy of the colonial Conservative. 

All sorts of dangers, it is suggested, may le hid in this terrible machine that 
will make the people the final arbiters in intercameral disputes. But we are never 
told in what the danger can possibly consist. Certainly it is not true to say that 
the referendum used as an arbiter between the senate and the house of repre¬ 
sentatives is an appeal to popular ignorance. It can never be invoked until the 
matter in controversy has been elaborately discussed in parliament, in the press, 
and on the platform. Therefore the merits of the dispute necessarily must be well 
digested by the people. The truth is, the plea of danger is the old excuse. Every¬ 
thing is dangerous that is new, and especially perilous if the people are to have a 
hand in it. 


Appendix No. 52. 

REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON CONSTITUTIONAL 
REFORM—VICTORIA, 1894. 

[Presented to both Houses of Parliament by his excellency’s command.] 

Victoria, by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland Queen, defender of the faith: To our trusty and well- 
beloved Robert Wallace Best, esq., M. P.; the Hon. Sir Graham 
Berry, K. C. M. G., M. P.,; the Hon. Sir Henry John Wrixon, 
K. C. M. G., M. P.; the Hon. Alfred Deakin, M. P.; the Hon. 
Isaac Alfred Isaacs, M. P.; the Hon. James Brown Patterson, M. P.; 
the Lion. Alexander James Peacock, M. P.; the Hon. William 
Shiels, M. P.; the Hon. George Turner, M. P.; Robert Harper, esq., 
M. P.; Samuel Thomas Staughton, esq., M. P.; William Arthur 
Trenwith, esq., M. P., greeting: 

Whereas it has been deemed expedient that a commission should 
forthwith issue to consider and report if any advantageous change 
can be made in the present mode of conducting the business of Parlia¬ 
ment, and specially as regards the present constitutional practice by 
which ministers of the crown are appointed: Now, know ye that we, 
reposing great trust and confidence in your zeal, integrity, knowledge, 
and ability, have constituted and appointed, and by these presents do 
constitute and appoint, you, the said Robert Wallace Best, Sir Graham 
Berry, Sir- Henry John Wrixon, Alfred Deakin, Isaac Alfred Isaacs, 
James Brown Patterson, Alexander James Peacock, William Shiels, 
George Turner, Robert Harper, Samuel Thomas Staughton, and 
William Arthur Trenwith, to be our commissioners for the purposes 
aforesaid; and for the better effecting the purposes of this our com¬ 
mission we do by these presents give and grant unto you or any five 
or more of you, in case you shall think fit so to do, full power and 
authority to call before you such persons as you shall judge likely to 
afford you any information on the subject of this our commission; 

S. Doe. 26-50 



272 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


and we do by these presents will and ordain that this our commission 
shall continue in full force and virtue, and that you, our said commis¬ 
sioners, or any five or more of you, may proceed in the execution thereof 
and of every matter or thing therein contained, although your pro¬ 
ceedings be not continued from time to time by adjournment; and 
our further will and pleasure is that you do, with as little delay as 
possible, report to us, under your hands and seals, your opinion on the 
matter herein submitted for your consideration; and we appoint you, 
the said Robert Wallace Best, to be chairman of this our commission, 
with authority to give a second or casting vote &t any meeting at 
which the votes (including that of the chairman) on any question 
pertaining thereto shall be equal. 

In testimony whereof we have caused these our letters to be made 
patent and the seal of our colony of Victoria to be hereunto affixed. 

Witness our right trusty and right well-beloved cousin, John Adrian 
Louis, Earl of Hopetoun, Viscount Aithrie, and Baron Hope, in the 
Peerage of Scotland; Baron Hopetoun, of Hopetoun, and Baron 
Niddry, of Niddry Castle, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; 
Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael 
and St. George; governor and commander in chief in and over the 
colony of Victoria and its dependencies, etc., at Melbourne, this 9th 
day of March, 1894, and in the fifty-seventh year of our reign. 

[l. s.] Hopetoun. 

By his excellency’s command, 

J. B. Patterson. 

ROYAL COMMISSION ON CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM. 

[Report.] 

To his excellency the Right Honorable John Adrian Louis, Earl of 
Hopetoun, Viscount Aithrie, and Baron Hope, in the Peerage of 
Scotland; Baron Hopetoun, of Hopetoun, and Baron Niddry, of 
Niddry Castle, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; Knight 
Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. 
George; governor and commander in chief in and over the colony 
of Victoria and its dependencies, etc. 

May it please Your Excellency: 

1. The commission have held several meetings, and have given the 
most earnest consideration to the questions upon which they were 
asked to report. 

APPOINTMENT OF MINISTERS OF THE CROWN. 

2. The system under which ministers of the Crown at present obtain 
and hold office has occupied much of the attention of the commission 
The chairman drafted and laid before the commission a bill providing 
for the election of ministers, their greater security of tenure, and for 
the referendum in certain events. These principles were discussed 
at great length and met with considerable support, but the majority 
of the commission were of opinion that it was impracticable at 
present to recommend such important constitutional alterations as 
would be involved in and necessitated by the election of ministers for 
a fixed period. The commission, moreover, have not been able to 
agree upon any other recommendation which would satisfactorily 
remove the defects of the present system and would not at the same 
time be attended with other defects perhaps equally great. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC 


273 


RECOMMENDATIONS. 

3. The commission, however, are of opinion that on several other 
points alterations may at once be made which will greatly facilitate 
the proper transaction of the business of Parliament and will be in 
the public interest. 

They make the following recommendations: (1) That the referen¬ 
dum be adopted in certain cases; (2) that a control over the proroga¬ 
tion of Parliament be vested in members of the legislative assembly; 
(3) that ministers should have the right to sit and speak in either 
house, but to vote in their own house only; (4) that power should be 
given to allow measures which have reached a certain stage in one ses¬ 
sion to be taken up at that stage in the following session; (5) that a 
public accounts committee should be appointed each session; (6) 
that a public works committee should be appointed each session. 

REFERENDUM. 


4. The commission are strongly impressed with the advantage of 
the referendum. It provides a simple method of obtaining an accu¬ 
rate expression of the popular will on any question. While the neces¬ 
sity for putting the referendum in force might only rarely occur, the 
power to obtain the decision of the voters would be an important 
factor, especially in any disagreements that might arise between the 
two houses. 

The commission recommend that the following provisions should 
be adopted in regard to the referendum: 

(a) If the legislative assembly shall in two consecutive sessions 
pass any bill which shall not be passed by the legislative council, 
then, notwithstanding such bill when passed in the second session by 
the legislative assembly shall be in an amended form, if the same 
shall not in such second session be passed by the legislative council, 
such bill, if the assembly so determine by resolution, shall, in manner 
to be duly provided, be submitted for acceptance or rejection to the 
voters on the roll for the legislative assembly. 

(b) In the event of the said bill being duly accepted or approved of 
by the majority of the voters on the said roll who shall vote when a 
poll is taken, and upon a certificate to that effect, to be duly given 
by the speaker, the said bill shall be transmitted to the governor for 
his assent. Should, however, such bill be rejected or disapproved of, 
then, upon the certificate of the speaker to that effect, the said bill 
shall lapse for the session. 

(c) At least six weeks must intervene between the first and the 
second passing of the said bill by the legislative assembly. 

All of which we have the honor to submit for your excellency’s 


consideration. 

Witness our hands and seals this 10th day of July, 1894. 

R. W. Best, Chairman. 
Graham Berry. 
Alfred Deakin. 

Isaac A. Isaacs. 

A. J. Peacock. 

Wm. Shiels. 


l. s. 
'l. s. = 
l. s.' 
“l. s.* 

L. S.' 
L. S.' 


(Except as regards paragraph 4, vide attached memorandum.) 

W. A. Trenwith. [l. s.l 

George Turner. [l. s.' 

C. Gavan Duffy, Secretary. 


S. Doc. 340-18 






274 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

MEMORANDUM. 

I recognize that there are some manifest advantages in the use of the 
referendum, and approve it as the best means of ascertaining the true 
opinion of the people on proposals involving grave constitutional 
changes, the issues on which can be submitted in clear and simple 
form for the direct yes or no of the electors. 

For settling other differences between the Houses of Parliament on 
complicated matters of general legislation I prefer a dissolution of 
both houses; and, if reconcilement be then impossible, their joint 
meeting as one chamber, as recently approved by Mr. Gladstone and 
the Liberal Party of the United Kingdom for securing finality. 

This method is in harmony with representative institutions, and 
gives no advantage to the voters of cities and towns against country 
electors, who can not so easily and conveniently record their suffrages. 

Wm. Shiels. 


Appendix No. 53. 

THE MAJORITY RULE LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

[Drafted after wide correspondence by Frederick Upham Adams, editor The New Time; author. 
President John Smith. A plan for a permanent organization of the people in their respective 
precincts, with a view of substituting direct legislation by majority vote for the existing 
system of corporation legislation by purchased votes.] 

INTRODUCTION. 

This pamphlet is written in response to thousands of letters from 
all parts of the United States. In a note at the end of President 
John Smith the suggestion was made that “majority rule clubs” be 
formed for the purpose of arousing an interest in direct legislation. 
In response to that suggestion many of such clubs have been formed. 
After a consultation with leading advocates of direct legislation, pub¬ 
lic ownership of monopolies and kindred reforms, it has been deemed 
advisable to give force and direction to this movement by drafting a 
plan which may serve until such a time as it is possible for a duly 
elected and accredited convention from the people to formulate a 
permanent one. 

The writer believes he will be acquitted of any personal interest in 
this matter other than a desire to be counted among those who are 
striving for pure democracy, real republicanism, and the formation of 
a genuine people’s party. This can not obtain until the people are 
organized, and good judgment seems to dictate an organization by 
voting precincts. It is believed that the plan herein submitted will 
be sufficient to serve as a guide until such time as the league is so 
generally organized as to be able to call a convention actually author¬ 
ized by a commanding percentage of the people. 

Until such a time there is no need of national officers, with the 
exception of a secretary who will serve without pay. 

No dues of any kind are required, excepting such as the local clubs 
may levy for purposes of their own choice. The New Time does not 
pose as the official organ of the league, but pledges its hearty coopera¬ 
tion with other reform publications and newspapers which may fall 
into line. This pamphlet is submitted in the sincere hope that the 



275 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

proposed plan may commend itself to the various parties and factions 
now opposed to plutocracy, and that it may serve as a unifying agency, 
resulting in a permanent fusion of the producing millions of our 
country and their speedy triumph at the ballot box. 

Frederick Upham Adams. 

ORGANIZE FOR VICTORY—A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN WHICH WILL RESULT 

IN VICTORY IN 1900— ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE—THE MAJORITY RULE 

LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES—ITS DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES, 

OBJECTS, CONSTITUTION, AND PLAN OF ORGANIZATION—WILL SWEEP 

THE COUNTRY. 

If the people want a government in which they can rule, they mnst first form a 
party in which they do rule. 

It is time for action. The people are weary of talk. They have 
listened to theories, and are asking the question, How are you going 
to bring this thing about? 

The people are ready to abolish private monopolies and substitute 
national and municipal ownership of the same. How are they going 
to do it? That is a question worthy of consideration at the present 
time. The people would like to have a direct vote on all great public 
questions. How are they going to obtain it? 

It is not easy to answer these questions. Though party ties have 
been loosened, they yet hold in submission and allegiance the major¬ 
ity of the voters. No party has within its ranks a monopoly of good 
citizenship. No party can sound a call which will rally to its standard 
those whose eyes have been opened to the aggressions and encroach¬ 
ments of corporate wealth. 

The vast majority of the Republican party are earnest, honest men, 
but see no good reason why they should quit their organization and 
vote with the Democracy. They realize at last that plutocracy domi¬ 
nates the councils of their party, but look with suspicion on a democ¬ 
racy in which the absolute party control of three great States is vested 
respectively in Richard Croker, John McLean, and Robert Burke. 
The rank and file of the Democratic party are eager for genuine 
reform, but they are disfranchised so far as the management of their 
party is concerned. They are powerless to dictate platforms or name 
candidates. 

The People’s Party is disrupted. That is the plain, simple truth. 
One faction is fused with the Democracy, and only asks that it be not 
so grievously insulted as to be forced to sever the alliance. A few 
representatives of the other faction have practically selected a candi¬ 
date for President, formulated a platform, and now ask the people to 
ratify their action. 

No one questions the sincerity of these men. No one questions the 
honest zeal of the thousands who see no hope except in the nomina¬ 
tion and election of Mr. Bryan. They have been educated in a politi¬ 
cal school which teaches reliance, not on the people, but upon those 
who are supposed to “represent” the people. 

The present situation is absurd. There is no guaranty that the 
Democratic convention of 1900 will nominate Mr. Bryan or even 
reaffirm the anti plutocratic planks of the Chicago platform. On the 
contrary, corporate influences are steadily fastening their grip on 
the party machinery. On the other hand, the lamentable failure of 
the McKinley Administration may result in a landslide in 1898 and 
the passage of a free-coinage bill, even over a Presidential veto. In 


276 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


either event the position of those who have temporarily abandoned 
such grand issues as public ownership and direct legislation for free- 
silver agitation will be grotesque in the extreme. 

It is political idiocy and criminal folly to risk the cause of the peo¬ 
ple on the fate of William J. Bryan or any other man who will come 
before a convention dominated by the Crokers, McLeans, Burkes, and 
those who have no mission other than office and plunder. There are 
issues of more importance than silver. There are millions who voted 
for silver and other millions who voted for gold who really believe in 
a scientific paper currency based on the productivity of labor and the 
credit of the Government. Such Republicans as Governor H. S. Pin- 
gree a id such Democrats as ex-Governor John P. Altgeld more nearly 
voice the hopes and aspirations of the people than do the advocates 
of a fixed ratio between two useless metals of varying production. 
Unless some method is devised by which the intelligent people of all 
parties can unite and frame a modern political platform, the future 
holds promise of nothing but overwhelming defeat or barren victory. 

The Democratic party must become democratic and the People’s 
Party must again consult the people. They must meet halfway those 
discouraged Republicans who have abandoned all hope for reform com¬ 
ing from their party. Rival and contending partisan committees fill 
the air with appeals for the people to abandon all alliances and 
acknowledge their leadership and authority. No one suggests that the 
people should be consulted in this matter. Each writer and speaker 
honestly believes that in some way he has been given a mission to rep¬ 
resent the people, and charges that all others are but subsidized 
tools of plutocracy. 

Who are the people? Where can they be found? How and when 
did they elect these warring leaders and representatives? Is it too late 
to again consult them? 

The people are found in voting precincts. The voting precinct is 
the unit of our republican form of government. It should be made 
the unit of a political organization by which there shall be obtained 
government of, for, and by the people. 

It is time the people went into politics. It is time the people formed 
a political machine. It is time that Congressional, State, and national 
conventions sprang directly from the people, and that the people 
become invested with power to pass upon the acts of their party rep¬ 
resentatives. 

The plan herein outlined antagonizes no political party or faction 
of a party. It offers a chance for a speedy and permanent fusion of 
all the forces of reform. It is the perfect embodiment of Democracy, 
Republicanism, and Populism in the true sense of these misused 
words. It proposes to rehabilitate the town meeting—the highest type 
yet attained by American democracy—with the voting precincts for 
geographical lines. It otfers a chance to obtain at any time the voiced 
expression of the voters of the Republic. It is a permanent parlia¬ 
ment of the people, from whose decision there can be no appeal. It 
should have the indorsement of the various partisan committees now 
struggling for supremacy. It can be made a power in 1898 and should 
be irresistible in 1900. 

The people of the United States have good reason to look with sus¬ 
picion on any proposition to found a new party or a new reform organi¬ 
zation. There are numberless leagues, orders, secret societies, and 
other bodies, each with its quota of salaried officers and its official 
ogan. There is no doubt but that many and probably most for these 


277 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

societies have accomplished a vast amount of good, but the people are 
so poor that any tax is a burden. Again, it has been found that men 
who have been elevated to positions of leadership and representative 
responsibility have been false to their trusts. They have sold out the 
men who had faith in them. The representative system is a failure, 
even in the government of labor unions and reform societies. 

Let us give the world an illustration of majority rule by founding 
an organization and a political party on that principle. No political 
party in this country conforms to the principle of the initiative and 
referendum. No political party grants to its members the imperative 
mandate—the right to recall a party representative who has gone 
counter to the wishes of his constituents. Let us first construct a 
scientific party organization before preaching a doctrine which we 
are not consistent enough to adopt for our political guidance. 

IF THE PEOPLE WANT A GOVERNMENT IN WHICH THEY CAN RULE, THEY MUST 
FIRST FORM A PARTY IN WHICH THEY DO RULE. 

After careful consultation and an extended correspondence, a plan 
of organization has been proposed which seems practical. Under it 
the people never surrender their power. They may lease it, but the 
lease is subject to revocation at any time. They can depose a repre¬ 
sentative as easily as they can elect one. 

Government can rise no higher than its source, and its present 
source is partisan politics. The council chamber is the reflex of the 
ward primary, and the Ignited States Senate springs from the secret 
party caucus. 

The plan now submitted is only tentative and suggestive, and is 
intended to be operative only until the people are in a position to call 
Congressional, State, and national conventions. It has been care¬ 
fully considered and is submitted in the hope that it may meet the 
demands of hundreds who have written for advice and information 
as to the best way to organize majority-rule clubs. 

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE MAJORITY RULE LEAGUE OF THE UNITED 

STATES. 

The members of this league declare their allegiance to the doctrine 
that the majority of the people should govern, not in theory, but 
practically, absolutely, and that from the decision of the majority 
there shall be no appeal. We declare that majority rule does not 
prevail, and affirm the opinion that the woeful abuses and grievous 
scandals which exist can be directly traced to legislative enactments 
and judicial decisions in which the people have not been consulted. 

After an experiment lasting more than a century the representative 
system of government has proved a failure. Its continued existence 
is a menace not only to the Republic but to the best fruits of our 
social progress and civilization. The open and shameless corruption 
of public officials, the disregard of legislative bodies for public opin¬ 
ion, the supremacy of the party boss and the thug ownership of the 
party primary are conditions no longer to be denied or ignored. We 
demand an overthrow of the lobby, and in its place propose to install 
the unlimited rule of the people. 

We do not believe that the people need to be checked, restrained, 
guided, rebuked, or vetoed. We believe that the people are fitted 
for self-government. We do not believe that the people are likely to 
vote against their best interests. If they make a mistake, they will 


278 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


have at their command, under direct legislation, the means to correct 
it speedily. We believe that all officers elected by the people should 
at any time be subject to recall by a vote of the people. We hold 
that all important laws should be submitted to the vote of the people. 
In brief, we believe in the unrestricted rule of the people as deter¬ 
mined by the majority. 

We believe that the public ownership and control of monopolies 
should be the first step taken by the people after they have secured 
the right to initiate and vote upon legislation. We hold the public 
ownership of monopolies to be an issue of such overwhelming impor¬ 
tance and so closely allied to that of direct legislation by majority 
vote as to be worthy of recognition and advocacy by every member of 
this league. We recognize the tremendous importance of the money 
question. We denounce the single gold standard as a world-wide 
conspiracy against the producers of wealth, and demand an honest 
measure of value. As a first step in that direction we demand the 
remonetization of silver. The income tax, the land tax, and other 
issues now under discussion are of vast importance, and as members 
of the Majority Rule League we promise to give these questions a 
most careful study, so as to be able to cast an intelligent vote when 
majority rule prevails and the verdict of the people becomes a law 
for the people. 

OBJECT. 

The Majority Rule League is more than an organization for educa¬ 
tional purposes. It is more than a national party with political issues. 
It is designed not only as the mechanism by which certain vital reforms 
shall be engrafted into legislation, but also as the permanent organi¬ 
zation which shall survive the period of transition which is now at 
hand. We aim to construct an organization which shall result in a 
peaceful solution of momentous problems; in which the principles of 
the party shall, through the agency of the ballot, become a part of 
our Government. This is not possible until the majority of the peo¬ 
ple become acquainted with the principles of direct legislation. 

The objects of the Majority Rule League are summed up as follows: 

1. To provide an organization of rapid growth, devoted at the 
start to the education of the voters of the country. 

2. To constitute at the earliest possible date a political party, gov¬ 
erned in its formation, management, conventions, and in the shaping 
of its policies and platforms, by the principles of majority rule, viz, 
the initiative, referendum, and imperative mandate. 

3. To constitute the nucleus of a permanent system of self-govern¬ 
ment, based on the unit of voting precincts, with such regulations 
and provisions as the wisdom of the future may provide. 

PLAN OF ORGANIZATION FOR THE MAJORITY RULE LEAGUE OF THE UNITED 

STATES. 

1. The unit of organization shall be the voting precinct. The Con¬ 
gressional district, the State organization, and the national organiza¬ 
tion follow in the order named. 

2. There shall be one club in each voting precinct, and only one. 
Any citizen of good character qualified to vote for Presidential elec¬ 
tors is eligible to membership in a club, and his application can be 
refused only by a majority vote of the club. 

Note.—I n all cases of club or party management a majority applies to those 
present and voting. 


279 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

No elector can be a member, active or otherwise, of any club other 
than that of the precinct in which he votes. A club member moving 
into a precinct with an organized majority rule club becomes a mem¬ 
ber without action by either club. Any rearrangement of precinct 
lines carries with it a corresponding change in the membership of the 
respective precinct clubs. 

3. Any seven voters in a precinct can organize a majority rule club. 
Until such time as it is possible to call a national convention George 
E. Bowen, secretary of the New Time Company, 56 Fifth avenue, 
Chicago, will act as general secretary. The estimated cost of a char¬ 
ter and 50 copies of the constitution and such other printed material 
as may be needed is about $1, and this should be forwarded with the 
application. There will be no other dues or fees, and Secretary Bowen 
will serve without pay. He will award each new club its proper num¬ 
ber and forward the charters and other materials necessary to the 
organization of the club. If two applications are made from the same 
precinct, priority of application will be considered. If upon proof 
being presented to the general secretary it is considered that a pre¬ 
cinct club is not actuated by sincere motives or is remiss in its duty, 
its charter may be revoked and one issued to other applicants. 

4. Membership of a club is of two kinds, initial and active. An 
active member is one who has by personal effort added one or more 
members to the club. An initial member is one who has as yet 
secured no new members to the club but who is pledged to make every 
effort to do so. The distinction is an honorary one. An initial 
member is entitled to wear an official Majority Rule League badge. 
Active members are permitted to add to such a badge one bar or link 
for each new member to their credit, the record being kept and the 
links awarded by the secretary of the club. 

5. All charter members must be active members, and in making 
application for a charter must forward the names and addresses of 
at least seven charter members and seven initial members. 

6. So long as an unorganized precinct remains in a Congressional 
district the charter members of any club making application for a char¬ 
ter must obligate themselves to organize at least one other precinct 
inside of thirty days after receipt of their charter. As a rule they 
should organize clubs in precincts of an adjoining Congressional dis¬ 
trict, but the obligation to form at least one new club inside of thirty 
days holds so long as there remains an unorganized voting precinct in 
the Congressional district. A club with one other club to its credit 
shall be known as red, one with two to its credit as white, one with 
three as blue, and one with more than three shall add the number 
after the color designation, as for example, “Majority Rule Club No. 
4782—Blue 5.” 

7. Upon becoming a member of a club each voter pledges himself 
to write at least three personal letters to friends or relatives in other 
States or Congressional districts, inclosing the plan of organization 
and urging cooperation. 

8. Each precinct club shall elect one member of a Congressional 
committee, which committee shall have charge of all matters of gen¬ 
eral interest in the Congressional district. 

9. Each Congressional committee shall elect one member of the State 
committee, which committee shall have charge of all matters of gen¬ 
eral interest in the State. 

10. Each State committee shall elect one member of the national 


280 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

committee, which committee shall perform the duties now devolving 
on similar bodies. 

11. A club may at any time by a majority vote recall its member of 
the Congressional committee; the Congressional committee, on action 
by a majority of the clubs in the district, may in a similar way recall 
its member of the State committee, and the State clubs have the same 
authority over their representative on the national committee. These 
respective committees have power to call conventions and fix the basis 
of representation of the same. 

12. Upon demand of 25 per cent of the clubs or of the membership 
of the same the results of any convention or the decision of any com¬ 
mittee must be submitted to a referendum of the membership affected 
by the same. If the acts of a convention are repudiated by a majority 
vote, new delegates must be elected and another convention held. An 
adverse vote on an act of a committee repeals such act, and shall be 
followed by the resignation of the members of the committee who voted 
in the affirmative. 

13. These rules shall remain in force and effect until such time as 
it is possible to call a national convention, when they may be amended 
or repealed. 

14. Each precinct club shall organize with such officers and commit¬ 
tees as it may select. There should be a committee on organization 
of outside clubs, and other committees on education, literature, pub¬ 
lic meetings, etc. Each club should be governed by its local condi¬ 
tions in these matters. For the guidance of those who prefer to 
organize on some designated plan, the following sample constitution 
is submitted: 

SUGGESTED CONSTITUTION FOR A PRECINCT MAJORITY RULE CLUB. 

1. This organization shall be known as Majority Rule Club No.-, 

of-(town),-(State). 

2. Its officers shall be a president, vice-president, secretary, treas¬ 
urer, and statistician. 

3. These officers shall be elected annually on the-(date) of each 

year. Upon the petition of one-half of the members any office shall 
be declared vacant and an election held to fill the vacancy. The same 
rule applies to any member of a committee or any representative of 
the club. 

4. The duties of the president, vice-president, secretary, and treas¬ 
urer shall be those usually pertaining to their respective positions. 

5. The statistician shall collect such wage and industrial and social 
statistics as maybe called for by the general secretary of the Majority 
Rule League of the United States. 

6. On the 1st of each month the secretary shall forward to the gen¬ 
eral secretary at Chicago the names of all new members since the last 
report, and such information as may be of value in recording the 
growth of the movement. 

7. This club shall hold regular meetings on-of each week (or 

month). 

8. The initiation fee shall be-and the monthly dues-. 

9. There shall be a committee of three, including a chairman, on 
organization. It shall be the duty of this committee to be active in 
the organization of majority rule clubs in this and other Congressional 
districts. Any member of the club is authorized to act as organizer 
and to aid this committee. 






281 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

10. The committee on literature shall consist of a chairman and two 
members. They shall purchase with the funds of the club and such 
other funds as they can raise such books, pamphlets, papers, maga¬ 
zines, cartoons, and other printed matter as, in their judgment, is best 
calculated to promote the growth of the cause for which the club is 
organized. 

11. The committee on public meetings and entertainments shall con¬ 
sist of a chairman and two members. They shall arrange for such 
public meetings and entertainments as may be deemed best for the 
good of the club. 

12. All members must subscribe to the declaration of principles of 
the Majority Rule League of the United States and to the general plan 
of organization adopted for the same. 

13. The president, secretary, treasurer, and chairmen of the com¬ 
mittees on organization, literature, and public meetings shall consti¬ 
tute a board of directors and an executive committee. They are 
empowered to call special meetings of the club and to exercise such 
other duties as generally devolve on such committees. 

14. In so far as conscience dictates each member of this club agrees, 
until such time as the principles of majority rule are enacted into law, 
to vote on all national questions in such a manner as may be deter¬ 
mined upon by the majority vote of the Majority Rule League, and to 
be governed in State, Congressional, and local matters by the same 
considerations. 

15. This constitution may at any time be revoked or amended at the 
pleasure of a majority of the members of this club. 

SOME SUGGESTIONS. 

Under this plan party bossism is impossible. It will ever be an easy 
matter to obtain the will of the majority of the organization and to 
carry it into execution. No clique can obtain control of a local club 
and hold it against the will of the majority. The underlying principle 
is local self-government with perfect cooperation on Congressional, 
State, and national questions. The objects should be (1) to obtain 
the verdict of the majority; (2) to concentrate every elfort to carry 
it into execution. 

While a member does not surrender his individuality on becoming 
a member of the Majority Rule League, he should make it a rule to 
act in harmony with the organization after a policy has been duly 
considered and adopted. In the precinct the Majority Rule League 
Club is supreme; in the Congressional district and the State organiza¬ 
tion the respective committees have authority, subject to revision at 
the hands of those they represent. 

After organizing a precinct club the first duty should be to organize 
another club in some adjacent precinct. The application of such a 
club should bear the name of the secretary of the parent club, and 
should be promptly forwarded to General Secretary Bowen, of Chicago. 
The matter of organizing other precinct clubs should then he referred 
to a suitable committee. Each member of the club should then con¬ 
stitute himself a committee on membership. Each member should be 
assigned to a certain territory and held responsible for results. In 
the periods between elections the club should devote its energies to 
the circulation of good literature. Club meetings should not be held 
too frequently, but every effort should be made to obtain a full attend¬ 
ance at such meetings. 


282 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


A Congressional committee should not be appointed until at least 
25 per cent of the precincts in the district are organized. The same 
rule should obtain in State and national committees. 

In all matters of political action and general policy the respective 
clubs and committees have absolute authority. They may indorse the 
candidates of existing parties or nominate those of their own selection. 
Pending the general organization of the league the election of office 
holders should be made of secondary importance, and should serve to 
strengthen the league and never be permitted to disorganize it. 

Avoid all secrecy. Club and committee meetings should be open to 
the public. Invite free discussion of all questions. Be careful in 
the selection of representatives and hold them to a strict accounta¬ 
bility. Until such time as the league is strong enough to select can¬ 
didates of its own indorse no man who is not willing to sign hi» name 
to a club roll and agree in the future to abide by the decision of the 
Majority Rule League. Exact from such candidates an iron-clad, 
public promise to vote and work for the principles of the Majority 
Rule League. 

If the suggestions herein outlined are carried out, the country will 
be organized from the Atlantic to the Pacific in less than twelve 
months and the Majority Rule League will sweep the country in 1900. 
It should be able to settle the silver question in the fall elections of 1898. 
It will then be ready to take up issues of vastly more importance. 

ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE. 

In the future you will be proud to say that you were a charter 
member of one of the early majority rule clubs. Call a public meet¬ 
ing in your town or city and plan this work. Secure a map of your 
Congressional district and complete a Congressional committee at the 
earliest possible date. 

Address all applications for charters and copies of this pamphlet 
to General Secretary George E. Bowen, of the New Time, 56 Fifth 
avenue. Fifty copies of this pamphlet and a club charter will be for¬ 
warded on receipt of $1. Extra copies of this pamphlet will be sup¬ 
plied at cost price, viz: 


Single copy .. $0.03 

25 copies. 50 

50 copies.. 1.00 

100 copies.. 1.75 

500 copies.. 7.50 

1,000 copies. 15.00 


You can afford to spend your time in this cause. It is time to come 
together and form a constructive party. It is a waste of energy to 
protest against abuses if you have nothing to offer as a remedy. De¬ 
clare against legislative corruption and in favor of direct legislation 
by majority vote. Declare againstthe trust ownership of the country 
and in favor of the public ownership of the trusts. Meet in your 
respective precincts and proceed to carry this programme into effect. 

Address all communications to 

George S. Bowen, 

The New Time Company , 56 Fifth avenue , Chicago , III, 








DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


283 


Appendix No. 54. 

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. 

Various people have been at work on a direct-legislation amend¬ 
ment to the United States Constitution for years, and this appendix 
contains a few of the suggested drafts. 

In the New York Voice of June 6, 1895, was the following letter: 

INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM—DRAFT FOR A PROPOSED AMENDMENT 
TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Editor of the Voice: 

Allow me to both thank and congratulate you on your editorial, 
“Initiative and referendum.” I believe that this measure must pre¬ 
cede public ownership of natural monopolies, and will as surely lead 
to such ownership as water will run down hill. Not only so, but it 
will be found to completely solve the difficulty which your editorial, 
“An objection considered,” was designed to answer. 

I have been talking with our citizens about this matter. Every 
citizen, irrespective of party, declares he will vote for it, and that 
he will vote for any candidate for Congress pledged to that reform 
against any candidate not so pledged in order to get the constitu¬ 
tional amendment submitted. This fact has set me to thinking; and 
the more I think the more I am convinced that, if the candidates for 
Congress only know how to push this matter for all it is worth, the 
party declaring for the initiative and referendum will win. 

Don’t be afraid to trust the people to vote themselves into power 
when they can do so. By all means keep this matter before the peo¬ 
ple until they understand it. The common people do not understand 
such big words as initiative and referendum, while they readily grasp 
the thing itself. Why not draw up a proposed sixteenth amendment 
to the Constitution embodying this principle and keep it in your col¬ 
umns all the time. It will be a powerful educator. How would some¬ 
thing like the following do? 

SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Section 1. Whenever 50,000 voters shall petition to have any law enacted, the 
Congress of the United States shall within six months cause such law to be sub¬ 
mitted to a vote of the people: and if such law shall be ratified by the people, it 
shall be both law and Constitution, and the courts shall be bound thereby, any¬ 
thing in the former Constitution or laws of the United States, or any of them, to 
the contrary notwithstanding. 

Sec. 2. If 50,000 voters shall, by petition, remonstrate against any law enacted 
by Congress, said law shall be submitted by the people for their ratification; and 
if ratified by the people it shall be law, but if rejected it shall not be law. 

Sec. 3 . When Congress shall send any law to the President for his approval, he 
may, in his discretion, within three months thereafter, cause said law to be sub¬ 
mitted to the people for their approval or disapproval; and if approved by the 
people it shall be law, but if disapproved it shall not be law, 

D. P. Bond, 
Science Hill , Ky. 


284 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


In the Coming Nation, a weekly published at Ruskin, Tenn., No. 
138, of January 11,1896, was the following article: 

A NATIONAL AMENDMENT. 

[By Eltweed Pomeroy.1 

The New Jersey league, at its annual meeting, appointed a com¬ 
mittee to draft and agitate for a direct-legislation amendment to the 
United States Constitution. There are now five drafts before this 
committee. It has been great work to get the amendment both short 
and yet full enough as to be easily understood and not liable to mis¬ 
interpretation. The committee has wisely decided that more time is 
needed for the perfect drafting, and as there is only a slight chance 
of its passing the present Congress the amendment will not be pre¬ 
sented at this session, but instead a committee of inquiry will be 
asked for to find out and report on the wisdom and need of direct 
legislation in national matters. This will show, as well as the pres¬ 
entation of an amendment, that direct legislation is a national as 
well as a State and local matter, and it will secure a wider agitation 
and education on it. 

The committee want your help and advice. And so I print here 
one of the drafts with some explanations. Send any suggestions or 
drafts that you may have to William A. Cotter, Newark, N. J., the 
head of the committee and president of the New Jersey league, or 
send them to the editor of this column. This is a matter which the 
whole people will have to decide on finally, and in framing it the 
advice of all wellwishers is needed. 

One proposed direct-legislation amendment to the United States 
Constitution now being considered by the committee is as follows: 

Article I, section 1, of the Constitution of the United States shall be, and hereby 
is, amended to read as follows: 


Article I. 

THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT. 

Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of 
the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives, 
but the right to veto or repeal any law passed by Congress, and to enact any law 
or constitutional amendment independently of Congress and the President, remains 
with the electors of the United States qualified to vote for Members of the House 
of Representatives. 

Note. The first clause about all power being vested in Congress is as it now 
stands; the last clause about the right to vote or repeal, etc., is added on. It is 
said that the right remains with the electors. This is proper. They are the ones 
who vest Congress with the right, and they should sustain the control over their 
servants. This right is already stated in the Declaration of Independence where 
it says all government shall be by “the consent of the governed.” But the Decla¬ 
ration and the Constitution do not provide any means of carrying out that right, 
or rather the means are so faulty that the will of the people is not the law of the 
land. So this amendment must do more than state this right, else it is not effective. 

amendment. 

No law approved or enacted by the electors shall be repealed or amended by 
Congress alone, but such repeal or amendment shall be referred to the electors. 

Note. If Congress can repeal or change anything enacted by the people, without 
a reference to the people, the people’s rights may easily be made of no avail; hence 
the necessity of the above clause. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 285 


AMENDMENT. 

Measures declared by a vote of two-thirds of all the members present in each 
House of Congress to be of urgent necessity for the immediate preservation of the 
public peace, health, or safety may go into effect at once, but such laws shall 
remain subject to rejection by the people, and if rejected shall be treated as 
repealed. All other measures shall not go into effect under four months after 
passing. 

Note. If Congress can enact a law to go into effect at once without time for the 
people to have their say, the people's rights may as in the past easily be bargained 
away before they can do anything; hence the delay fixed in the last clause. 

One of the false objections at times brought against direct legislation is that the 
people in a fit of passion may enact a bad law. Direct legislation when properly 
applied means more deliberation, more care in lawmaking. It is a conservative 
measure. That is, it conserves or preserves all that is best in our past. 

But there come up emergencies when legislation is needed at once. These are 
rare and readily recognized by all. Hence they must receive two-thirds of the 
votes in Congress. Also they are only for the “ immediate preservation of the 
public peace, health, and safety,” and hence this limitation on them. 

AMENDMENT. 

If the Supreme Court of the United States declare any law unconstitutional the 
President shall issue a proclamation submitting the statute to the people at the 
next Congressional or referendary election not held within two months thereafter, 
and if approved by three-fifths of the citizens voting on the question, it shall 
remain in full force and effect. But no such special vote shall impair the general 
authority of the constitutional principle suspended in such case. 

Note. This paragraph does not need much comment. We all know how the 
Supreme Court has, and in most cases, I think, honestly, nullified the wish of the 
people because of what some long dead men said. The dead should not rule 
the living, else will our civilization come to a standstill, as China’s has. We will 
not progress. The living should rule themselves. Yet we should have respect 
for the wisdom of our ancestors. This provision happily combines respect for 
ancestors and deliberation in rejecting their opinions with the full power of the 
living people. 

AMENDMENT. 

Should three-fifths of the citizens voting approve of a constitutional amendment 
not subject under the provisions of Article v, the President shall issue a procla¬ 
mation submitting it a second time to popular vote, not less than thirteen nor 
more than twenty-five months after the first election, and if three-fifths of the 
citizens voting approved of it at this second election it shall become a part of the 
Constitution. 

Note. The Constitution should be changed with deliberation. But the method 
of changing our Constitution is so difficult and slow that outside of the first 
amendments, which were really a part of the Constitution, it has only once been 
changed and then after a bloody civil war. We don't want another war in order 
to change the Constitution. Yet the hand of the dead should not rule the living. 
Changing conditions require changing laws and constitution. Hence this pro¬ 
vision which requires more than a majority on two votings and more than a year’s 
deliberation. 

AMENDMENT. 

Congress shall enact the necessary laws to carry this amendment into effect, but 
on a petition signed by not less than 100,000 electors, the President shall submit 
the law, or such part as is petitioned for, as enacted by Congress, to a poll of the 
people for adoption or rejection. And on a petition signed by not less than 200,000 
electors, for the enactment of any law to carry this amendment into effect, in full 
or in part, the President shall submit such petitioned measure to a poll of the 
people, and if a majority shall vote in favor of it, it shall become a law without 
the signature of the President, and it shall repeal anything inconsistent with it in 
laws already passed. 

Note. This last clause explains itself. Congress must pass the laws arranging 
the details, but if any of these are not the wish of a suitable minority , they can, by 
a petition, have their method brought before the whole people for discussion and 
adoption or rejection. 


286 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

The same amendment with the names of the committee but without 
the comment above was printed in the Direct Legislation Record for 
December, 1895, the Newark Daily Advertiser of July 9, 1895, and 
many other papers. 

A variety of other drafts were considered by this committee and 
obtained by it from other investigators. Five are given below: • 

A A.—DIRECT LEGISLATION AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES 

CONSTITUTION. 

[Drafted specially for this report by Rufus W. Weeks, esq., of New York.] 

Article I, Section 1. 

All legislative powers herein established shall be vested in the people of the United 
States, acting as hereinafter specified, either directly or through the agency of a 
Congress, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. 

Article I, Section 7. 

Sec. 1. The exercise of legislative powers by the people acting directly shall be 
by means of petitions and of referendary elections. 

Sec. 2. A referendary election shall be held upon the same day throughout the 
United States, and all the electors qualified to vote for members of the House of 
Representatives shall have the right to vote at referendary elections. One or more 
measures may be submitted at a referendary election, and the result, in the case 
of each measure, shall be ascertained as follows: Each State shall be counted as in 
favor of or against the measure according to the vote of the electors of said State, 
and as many votes shall be given to each State in the count as the number of seats 
to which it is entitled in the House of Representatives. 

Sec. 3. Any bill passed by a vote of two-thirds of all the members present in 
each House of Congress, and declared by no less a vote to be of urgent necessity 
for the public health, peace, or safety, shall become a law. It shall, however, 
remain subject to rejection by the people at a referendary election, and such rejec¬ 
tion shall constitute a repeal. 

Sec. 4. Any bill passed by both Houses of Congress shall become a law three 
months after its final passage, unless its submission to the people in a referendary 
election be demanded within that time either by the President of the United States 
or by petitions bearing the properly authenticated signatures of not less than 
500,000 citizens qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives. 
Upon such demand being made in either of the above ways, the bill in question 
shall be submitted by proclamation of the President of the United States to a vote 
of the people at a referendary election to take place on the same day as the next 
election for members of the House of Representatives, held not less than one month 
after the date of such proclamation. If the bill submitted shall receive a majority 
vote of the States, counted as provided in section 2 of this section, it shall become 
a law, and not otherwise. 

Sec. 5. The Congress may, however, in its discretion, order a special referendary 
election upon any such bill, or upon any measure which this Constitution author¬ 
izes to be submitted to the vote of the people; but such special referendary election 
must take place before the next election for members of the House of Representa¬ 
tives, and not less than one month after it is ordered by Congress. 

Sec. 6. A majority of the members of the House of Representatives may demand 
that a bill passed by the House of Representatives, but not passed by the Senate, 
be submitted to the people in a referendary election; and such bill, if it receives 
three-fifths of the votes of the States counted as provided in section 2 of this section, 
shall become a law, and not otherwise. 

Sec. 7. Application may be made for the passage of any measure, by petitions 
bearing the properly authenticated signatures of not less than 1,000,000 citizens 
qualified to vote for the members of the House of Representatives. Any such 
application shall contain the full text of the measure proposed. If the Congress 
shall pass such measure without amendment, it shall become a law subject to the 
conditions of section 4 of this section. If the Congress shall not pass such measure, 
the President of the United States shall issue a proclamation, submitting it to the 
people in a referendary election, and if it receives three-fifths of the votes of the 
States counted as provided in section 2 of this section, it shall become a law, 

Article V. 

Amendments to this Constitution may be proposed by Congress or by petitions 
bearing the duly authenticated signatures of not less than 2,000,000 citizens quali- 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 287 

fied to vote for members of the House of Representatives. Whenever such a 
demand is made, the President shall issue a proclamation submitting the proposed 
am *“ nt P eo P^ e a referendary election, to be held not less than three 

months thereat ter; and upon being- ratified by two-thirds of the votes of the States, 
counted as provided in section 2 of Article I, section 7, and also by the votes of 
t f°in lrds °* states, counting one vote to each State, and not otherwise, it 
shall become a part of this Constitution. 

A.—DIRECT LEGISLATION AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES 

CONSTITUTION. 


[Drafted under direction of the Direct Legislation League of New Jersey, summer 1895.] 

Amend Article I, section 1, of the United States Constitution by making it read 
as below, and amend Article 1 by adding section 11 as below. The part in brack¬ 
ets in section 1 is the reading as it is at present. 

Article I .—The legislative department. 

Sec. 1. [All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of 
the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives] 
and in the electors of the United States qualified to vote for members of the House 
of Representatives. And the right to reject any measures passed by the Congress 
of the United States shall be vested in the electors of the United States qualified 
to vote for members of the House of Representatives. 

Sec. 11. 1. The Senate and House of Representatives, at its first session after 
the adoption of this amendment, shall, and when necessary from time to time 
thereafter may, pass laws to carry this amendment into effect. Such laws may 
provide that measures for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, 
and safety which have been declared urgent by not less than a two-thirds majority 
of both the Senate and House of Rei>resentatives may take effect immediately, 
but no other measure shall go into effect within less than four months after it 
has been signed by the President, or become a law without his signature, or passed 
over his veto as provided in Article VII, section 2: and if within the time fixed by 
law for filing petitions, which shall not be less than four months, a petition or 
petitions properly signed by one hundred thousand or more (100,000) citizens of 
the United States qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives 
shall have been signed and filed with the President of the United States, or such 
other officer as the law may direct, for the reference of said measure to a poll of 
the people, then not until a vote is had thereon and within not to exceed three 
months after the date of the filing of the last petition for it, which brought up the 
number of petitioners to the required number, the President of the United States, 
or such other officer as the law may direct, shall notify the governor in each State 
of the United States to submit said measure to a poll of the people at the next 
election for members of the House of Representatives not held within two months 
after the sending of such notification, and said governors shall, within not to 
exceed two months after the election, notify the President of the United States, or 
such other officer as the law may direct, of the number of votes with'in his own 
State cast for and the number cast against said measure, or each of said measures, 
if more than one are submitted, and the President of the United States, or such 
other officer as the law may direct, shall compile the returns so received, and shall, 
within three months after the day of election, make them public by proclamation; 
and if a majority of the votes cast and properly recorded shall be against any 
measure so submitted, the proclamation shall announce that said measure is not 
the will of the people; but if a majority of the votes cast and properly recorded 
shall be in favor of any measure so submitted, the proclamation shall proclaim 
said measure a law ratified by the people. 

2. The Congress of the United States, by a one-third vote of both the Senate and 
the House of Representatives, or by a majority vote of either the Senate or the 
House of Representatives, may refer any matter to a poll of the people for their 
decision under the same conditions as are provided if a referendary petition is filed 
as in paragraph 1 of this section. Also by the same vote they may provide for the 
calling of a special election to vote on any matter, whether referred by Congress 
or petitioned for by the people. 

3. Whenever a petition or petitions, properly signed by one hundred thousand 
(100,000) or more citizens of the United States qualified to vote for members of 
the House of Representatives shall have been filed with the President of the 
United States, or such other officer as the law may direct, for the enactment of 
any measure, said officer shall, within one week after the filing of the last petition 

S. Doc. 26-51 


288 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


for it which brought up the number of petitioners to the required number, if the 
Senate and House are in session, or within one week of their assembling if they 
are not in session, notify the Senate and House of Representatives of all measures 
so petitioned for, whereupon these measures shall take precedence of all other 
business; and should any such measure not be enacted within not to exceed six 
months after the date of the notification of the Senate and House of Representa¬ 
tives, the President of the United States, or such other officer as the law may direct, 
shall, within one month after the expiration of the aforesaid six months, notify 
the governor in each State in the United States to submit the said measure to a 
poll of the people at the next election for Members of the House of Representatives 
not held within two months after the sending of such notification, and said gov¬ 
ernors shall, within two months after the election, notify the President of the 
United States, or such other officer as the law may direct, of the number of votes 
within his own State cast for and the number of votes cast against said measure, 
or each of said measures, if more than one are submitted, and the President of the 
United States, or such other officer as the law may direct, shall compile the returns 
so received and shall, within three months after the day of election, make them 
public by proclamation, and if a majority of the votes cast and properly recorded 
shall be against any measure so submitted the proclamation shall announce that 
said measure is not the will of the people; but if a majority of the votes cast and 
properly recorded shall be in favor ef any measure so submitted the proclamation 
shall proclaim said measure a law enacted by the people. 

4. Whenever a second popular vote is had on any measure for which a majority 
of the electors voting have cast affirmative ballots at the first election, whether 
this second election is called by Congressional reference or by petition of the 
electors, or whether it is called in favor of the measure or for its repeal, and if at 
this second election a majority of the votes cast and properly recorded shall have 
been in favor of the measure or against its repeal, then said measure shall become 
a part of the Constitution of the United States, repealing anything already passed 
inconsistent with it. But such second election shall not be held within three 
years of the first voting. 

5. Should the law or laws to carry the provisions of this amendment into effect 
not be passed as hereinbefore required, or. if passed, be objected to by electors 
qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives, they may sign and 
file with the President of the United States a petition or petitions to enact a law 
or laws for such purpose, and the President of the United States shall, within three 
months after the filing of the last petition for such a law which brought up the 
number of petitioners to one hundred thousand (100,000), notify the governor of 
each State in the United States to submit the law, if any, as passed by Congress 
and such law or laws as proposed by the petitioners to a poll of the people for a 
choice thereof at the next election for members of the House of Representatives 
not held within two months after the sending of such notification. And said gov¬ 
ernors shall notify the President of the United States within two months after 
said election of the number of votes within his own State cast for each measure 
so submitted, and the law or laws in favor of which the largest number of votes 
shall then be cast shall be declared, within three months after the day of election, 
by proclamation of the President, adopted as the law of the United States. 

6. Any measure enacted or ratified by a vote of the qualified electors shall not 
be repealed or altered without a vote of the electors on the proposed repeal or 
alteration. 

7. Nothing in the Constitution shall be taken or construed to limit the foregoing 
powers of legislation vested in the qualified electors, nor to require the presenta¬ 
tion to or approval by the President or any other officer of any measure enacted 
or ratified by a vote of the electors, and all provisions therein in conflict herewith 
are hereby rescinded and annulled. 

• B.—DIRECT-LEGISLATION AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES 

CONSTITUTION. 

[Drafted by W. S. U’Ren, of Milwaukee, Oregon, and others, at the request of the Direct Legis¬ 
lation League of New Jersey.] 

Article I, section 1, of the Constitution of the United States shall be, and hereby 
is, amended to read as follows: 

Article I. 

Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives, 
and the right to veto or repeal any law passed by Congress and to enact any law 
independently of Congress remains with the electors of the United States qualified 
to vote for members of the House of Representatives. 


289 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

Laws and proposed laws shall be referred to the qualified electors for approval 
or rejection in the following cases; such only as are approved by a majority of 
those voting shall become law, and this shall be known as the referendum: 

First. Every law on which 100,000 electors shall by’appropriate petitions demand 
the referendum. 

Second. Every law on which one-third of the members of the Senate or one- 
third of the members of the House of Representatives shall, by appropriate reso¬ 
lutions, demand the referendum, the ayes and noes being duly recorded. 

Third. Every law enacted by Congress on which the President shall demand the 
referendum within ten days, Sundays excepted, after it is presented to him for 
approval. 

Fourth. If any court shall declare any law void in whole or ih part for conflict 
with the Constitution of the United States, the President shall order the referen¬ 
dum thereon; and if a majority of the votes cast are in favor thereof, it shall then 
become constitutional, repealing, as far as that act only is concerned, that part of 
the Constitution inconsistent with it. 

Fifth. If 150,000 qualified electors shall, by appropriate petitions, demand the 
enactment of any law, and if Congress shall not enact the same without change or 
amendment within the first three months of the first session succeeding such 
demand, the President shall order the referendum thereon. This shall be known 
as the initiative, and any proposed law or repeal so referred and approved by a 
majority of the electors voting thereon shall be of equal force and effect as if the 
same had been passed by Congress and approved by the President. 

No law passed by Congress shall take effect within four months after the close 
of the session at which it was passed; and if the referendum shall be demanded, 
then not until it has been approved by a majority of the qualified electors voting 
thereon. 

No law approved by the electors shall be repealed or amended by Congress 
alone, but such repeal or amendment shall be referred to the electors. 

No contract involving more than a million dollars, no issue of bonds, nor any 
treaty shall be made in behalf of the United States to take effect within four 
months after its official promulgation, and all shall be subject to the referendum, 
as is provided for proposed laws. 

So far as possible, appropriate explanations by the friends and foes of each 
measure submitted to the referendum shall be delivered to every voter at least 
thirty days before the referendary elections at which it is to be passed upon by 
the electors. 

The regular referendary elections shall be had at the regular elections for mem¬ 
bers of the House of Representatives not occurring within two months after the 
referendum has been ordered. Congress may order special referendary elections, 
and shall do so on the demand of 250,000 electors. 

Congress shall not have power to declare war before it has been approved by 
the people, except in case of actual invasion. 

Not more than two laws seeking to accomplish the same object by different 
methods shall be submitted to the referendum at one election. 

Any law rejected by the electors shall not be enacted or again referred to them 
within one year after its rejection. 

Legislation necessary to carry this amendment into effect may be had by Con¬ 
gress or by the initiative, or a proposed law may be submitted by each method, 
the electors to choose between them. Such laws may provide that measures to 
preserve the public peace, health, or safety which have been declared urgent by 
not less than two-thirds majority of both the Senate and House of Representatives 
and approved by the President may take effect immediately. 

Nothing in the Constitution shall be taken or construed to limit the foregoing 
powers of legislation vested in the qualified electors, nor to require the presenta¬ 
tion to or approval by the President or any other officer of any measure enacted 
or ratified by a vote of the electors, and all provisions therein in conflict with this 
amendment are hereby repealed. 

C.—AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION PROVIDING 
FOR LEGISLATION BY DIRECT VOTE OF THE PEOPLE. 

Amend Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution so as to read as follows: 

Article I .—The legislative department. 

Section 1. The legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives, 
except that the electors of the United States qualified to vote for members of the 

S. Doc. 340-19 



290 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


House of Representatives shall have the right to enact any law by a majority 
vote thereof, and also the right to reject any bills passed by the Congress of the 
United States by a like vote, under such regulations and by such method as may 
be provided by laws adopted by the Congress of the United States; and the Con¬ 
gress shall enact such laws at its next session held after the adoption of this amend¬ 
ment as may be necessary to carry this amendment fully into effect. 

Amend section 7 of Article I, which reads as follows: “All bills for raising 
revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may pro¬ 
pose or concur with amendments as on other bills,” by adding thereto: “but the 
electors may enact such laws, or reject the same, when passed by Congress, under 
the provisions of section 1 of Article 1.” 

D.—COMMENTS ON AMENDMENTS A, B, AND C. 

[By S. E. Moffett, then of San Francisco (1895), and now of New York City.] 

In Amendment A the period during which the execution of laws passed by Con¬ 
gress must be suspended to afford an opportunity for demanding the referendum 
seems tome unnecessarily long, in view of the present facilities for communica- 
tion. One month would give ample time for filing petitions in any matter in 
which much public interest existed. Regarding the referendum more as a poten¬ 
tial regulating force than as a matter of daily use, I should not complicate the 
ordinary operations of the Government by obtruding it unnecessarily in routine 
matters. Besides, if in any exceptional case a measure of which the people did 
not approve went into effect before petitions could be filed, a subsequent adverse 
vote could be made to repeal it. 

The number of 100,000 signers for a referendary petition seems far too small, 
and I think would have the effect of bringing the principle of direct legislation 
into disrepute. It is only about two-thirds of 1 per cent of the number of voters 
in the United States, and would afford no guaranty whatever against overloading 
the public attention with issues of trivial importance or that were not ripe for 
popular settlement. 

The objections to granting the power of the initiative to so small a number as 
100,000 voters are still stronger. In fact, it is easily susceptible of proof that the 
plan proposed in the amendment would swamp Congress at its first session with 
schemes many of which would have no real popular backing, with disastrous 
results to the public business as well as to the principle of direct legislation. It 
is proposed to give all measures petitioned for by 100,000 voters precedence over 
all other measures before Congress, and in the event of a failure to pass any or all 
of them within six months, to require the submission of those not enacted to a 
vote of the people. At the (1892) Presidential election the Democratic party cast 
5,556,583 votes, the Republican party 5,175,577, the Populist party 1,122,045, and 
the Prohibition party 279,191. All of these parties, therefore, could easily obtain 
the number of signers required to make their measures take precedence of every¬ 
thing else in the first session of Congress after the adoption of the proposed amend¬ 
ment. A few of the measures whose immediate consideration would certainly be 
demanded would be these: 

A high protective tariff. 

Absolute free trade. 

The free coinage of silver. 

The definite establishment of the single gold standard. 

The retirement of the greenbacks. 

Various new State and national bank-note systems. 

Unlimited issues of fiat money. 

The single tax. 

Woman suffrage in the Territories. 

The annexation of Cuba. 

The annexation of Hawaii. 

Government ownership of railroads, telegraphs, etc. 

A national election law. 

A national bankruptcy law. 

Bounties for shipping. 

Free ships. 

A national irrigating system. 

The restriction of immigration. 

The abolition of the internal-revenue system. 

Prohibition of the liquor traffic in the Territories. 

Sunday laws, to the limits of the powers of the Federal Government. 


291 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC, 


One-cent postage. 

The construction of the Nicaragua Canal. 

The repeal of the civil-service law. 

The extension of the civil-service law. 

Various schemes for disposing of the arid lands. 

A service-pension law. 

The increase of the Army and Navy. 

The abolition of the Army and Navy. 

Various plans for the construction of ship canals in different parts of the country. 

National aid to education. 

Tbe creation of subtreasuries for farm products. 

Government loans on land. 

The creation of postal savings banks. 

The suppression of dealings in options and futures. 

With all these things and many others made matters of urgency, and the agita¬ 
tions and legislative work of twenty years concentrated into six months, it is 
obvious that there would be no time for the routine proceedings required to carry 
on the ordinary operations of the Government, and that the people would be so 
bewildered by the multiplicity of demands on their attention that they would 
make many ill considered and unwise decisions, and the principle of direct legis¬ 
lation would be discredited. It would be much better to require such an impulse 
for setting the machinery of the initiative and referendum in motion as would 
indicate a strong popular demand, promising effective results. 

1 can not agree, either, with the provisions of the amendment making all meas¬ 
ures twice passed by the people parts of the Constitution, repealing all provisions 
inconsistent with them. The effect of this would be to destroy the distinctive 
character of the Constitution, transforming it from a general frame or charter of 
government into an incoherent code of laws, from which no unif orm principles 
of legislative action could be deduced, even with the help of a legal education. 
It would be much better to provide that any measure passed by the people, with 
due deliberation and proper safeguards, should be valid, nothwithstanding its 
inconsistency with the Constitution, but that each individual infraction of this 
kind should stand on its own footing, leaving the Constitution as before. 

I like the form of Amendment B better than that of Amendment A, but it is 
subject to most of the same objections. 

In the light of these remarks the following amendment which I have drawn up 
for your consideration needs little further comment. The provision retaining the 
Presidential veto in special legislation while abolishing it with regard to general 
laws is based on the fact that many small private jobs slip through Congress 
which ought to be checked, but which are not worth the trouble and expense of a 
national agitation. If Congress passed a bill to pay $5,000 for a drove of mythical 
mules alleged to have been confiscated in the war, it might be worth while to let 
the President veto it, but not to call upon 15,000,000 citizens to vote upon it. 

I propose to give a majority of the House the power of initiative in order to arm 
the popular body against an obstructive Senate, but I do not propose to give that 
power to a minority as long as the party system prevails, because if a small fac¬ 
tion could set in motion both the referendum and initiative there would be prac¬ 
tically no distinction between the majority and minority, and Congress would fall 
into contempt. Of course, if we had a system of government under which parties 
would disappear and people would divide merely according to the merits of indi¬ 
vidual questions, many things would be expedient which now are not. 

[Amendment proposed by S. E. Moffett.] 

Article XVI of Amendments. 

Article I, sections 1 and 7, and Article V of this Constitution shall be superseded 
by the following provisions: 

Article I. 

Sec. 1. All legislative powers herein established shall be vested in the people of 
the United States, acting as hereinafter specified, either directly or through the 
agency of a Congress, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. 

Sec. 7. Laws may be enacted in the following ways: 

1. Measures declared by a vote of two-thirds of all the members present in each 
House of Congress, to be of urgent necessity for the preservation of the public 
health, peace, or safety, may go into effect at once, but such laws shall remain 
subject to rejection by the people, and if so rejected shall be treated as repealed. 


292 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

2. All measures enacting or altering general laws, after passing the House of 
Representatives and the Senate by a majority of the members voting in each House, 
shall go into effect in two months after final passage, or at such later time as may 
be specified in any case, unless the referendum be effectively demanded within 
that time. 

The appeal to the people on measures passed by Congress, herein described as 
the referendum, may be effectively demanded: (a) by the President of the United 
States; ( b ) by one-third of the members of either House of Congress; (c) by the 
legislatures of one-fourth of the States of the Union; (c?) by petitions bearing the 
properly authenticated signatures of not less than 500,000 citizens qualified to votd 
for members of the House of Representatives. As soon as the referendum has 
been demanded in any of these ways, the President shall issue a proclamation 
submitting the question to the people at the next election for members of the 
House of Representatives, held not less than one month after the date of the proc¬ 
lamation, and the measure or measures submitted shall go into effect or become 
void as the majority of citizens qualified to vote at such election may determine. 
Congress, in its discretion, may order any such question or any other, upon which 
a vote of the people is required, to be submitted at a special election, held before 
the regular election on not less than one month’s notice, and subject to the same 
rules. The referendum may be demanded at any time on any measure passed by 
Congress, and if the measure shall have already gone into effect, on account of 
the failure to make the demand within two months after its passage, an adverse 
popular vote shall be equivalent to a repeal. 

3. All bills relating to individuals or localities, after passing both Houses of Con¬ 
gress, shall be presented to the President of the United States for his consideration. 
If he approve any such bill, it shall become a law, under the conditions prescribed 
in the preceding paragraph; but if he disapprove it, he shall return it, with his 
objections, to the House in which it shall have originated, and a two-thirds vote of 
the members present in each House shall then be required for its passage. Whether 
approved by the President or passed notwithstanding his objections, it shall remain 
subject to the referendum. 

4. Legislation may be initiated by the President of the United States, by a 
majority of the House of Representatives, by the legislatures of one-third of the 
States, or by petitions bearing the properly authenticated signatures of not less 
than 1,000,000 citizens qualified to vote for members of the House of Representa¬ 
tives. Every application for the passage of a law, made under authority of this 
provision, shall contain the full text of the law desired. If Congress shall pass 
this bill without amendment, it shall become a law in the usual course, subject to 
a demand for the referendum, like other acts of Congress. If Congress shall fail 
to pass it within six months from the time of its reception, the President shall 
issue a proclamation submitting it to the people at the next Congressional or refer¬ 
endary election, and unless Congress shall have passed it before the day of election, 
it shall be voted upon at that time by the citizens qualified to vote for members 
of the House of Representatives, and shall become a law or not, as the majority 
may determine. 

If Congress shall amend the proposed measure, the two bills, as originally pro¬ 
posed and as amended, shall be submitted together, and thto people shall decide 
which, if either, shall be adopted. When two or more bills, dealing with the 
same subject and mutually inconsistent, are submitted together no vote cast for 
more than one shall be counted, and a clear majority of the votes recorded for 
and against all shall be required for the adoption of any 

5. If the Supreme Court of the United States shalj declare any law of the United 
States unconstitutional, the President shall issue a proclamation submitting the 
statute to the people at the next Congressional or referendary elections, held not less 
than two months thereafter, and if approved by three-fifths of the citizens, quali¬ 
fied to vote for Representatives in Congress, voting on the question, it shall remain 
in full force and effect, notwithstanding its inconsistency with the Constitution. 
But no such special vote shall impair the general authority of the constitutional 
provisions suspended in such case. 


Article V. 

Sec. 1 . Amendments to this Constitution may be proposed by the President of 
the United States, by Congress, by the legislatures of a majority of the States, or 
by petitions bearing the duly authenticated signatures of not less than 2.000,000 
citizens qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives. When¬ 
ever such a demand is made, the President shall issue a proclamation without 
delay, submitting the pi oposed amendment to tbe people at the next Congressional * 
or referendary election held not less than two months thereafter, and upon being 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


293 


ratified by three fifths of the citizens qualified to vote for members of the House 
or Representatives, voting upon the question, it shall become a part of this Consti¬ 
tution. 

Sec. 2. Whenever any question is submitted to the people, under the operations 
of the referendum or initiative, the governor of each State shall certify to the 
President of the United States within two months the vote in his State, and within 
ten days after the receipt of the last of such certifications the President shall issue 
a proclamation announcing the total vote and declaring the measure voted upon 
adopted or rejected, as the case may be. 


Appendix No. 55. 

[S. 2055. Fifty-fifth Congress, first session.] 

In the Senate of the United States. 

June 1, 1897. 

Mr. Pettigrew introduced the following bill; which was read twice 
and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. 

A Bill to provide for the submission of certain questions to the legal voters of the 
United States of America and to provide for an election thereon. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Conyress assembled , That at the election 
to be held in the several States in the year eighteen hundred and 
ninety-eight, for the election of members of the House of Represent¬ 
atives in the Congress of the United States of America, the following 
questions shall be submitted to the citizens qualified to vote for said 
Representatives at said election, and said questions, with instructions 
to voters, shall be printed substantially in the following form on all 
official ballots for said election: 

“ Instructions to voters. The following questions are submitted to 
you by the Congress of the United States of America, to the end that 
Congress may be directly advised of your will thereon. Write the 
word ‘Yes’ after each question you approve, and the word ‘No’ after 
each question you disapprove. 

“Question one. Shall Congress at once enact a law providing for 
the immediate free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the 
ratio of sixteen to one? Answer. 

“Question two. Shall the Constitution of the United States be so 
amended as to provide for the election of United States Senators by 
direct vote of the people? Answer. 

“Question three. Shall the Constitution of the United States be so 
amended as to provide for the election of the President and Vice- 
President by direct vote of the people? Answer. .” 

Sec. 2. That the printing of these questions on all official ballots, 
certifying the returns to the President, and all other duties necessary 
to this election, shall be performed at the same time and by the same 
State and local officers who performed the same or similar duties at 
the aforesaid election for Representatives in Congress. It shall be 
the duty of the secretary of state for each State, immediately after 
the votes are canvassed, to forward forthwith to the President a cer¬ 
tified statement of the vote of his State by counties and Congressional 
districts on these questions. The President shall then compile said 
returns from the several States and transmit the same to Congress. 



294 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


It is hereby declared that Congress, in order to provide most effi¬ 
ciently for the general welfare of the United States, must be informed 
of the will af the people on questions of great national importance, 
and this knowledge can best be obtained by a direct vote of the citi¬ 
zens at the ballot box on each question. 


Appendix No. 56. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, December, 1896, a quarterly published at Newark, N J. J 
THE OREGON DIRECT-LEGISLATION AMENDMENTS. 

Section 1. The right to approve, reject, and repeal State laws, or 
proposed State laws, and constitutional amendments, shall rest with a 
majority of the citizens of the State. 

The right to approve or reject or repeal the laws or proposed laws 
and ordinances of any political subdivision of the State, such as county, 
city, town, district, or precinct, shall rest with a majority of the citi¬ 
zens of such political subdivision. The method of such approval or 
rejection shall be that known as the “referendum.” 

Sec. 2. The right to propose laws and constitutional amendments 
for the State shall, in addition to being exercised by the members of 
the legislative assembly, rest with any number of voters of the State, 
equal to seven per centum of the votes cast at the last preceding gen¬ 
eral election before such proposal. The right to propose laws for any 
political subdivision of the State, such as county, city, town, district, 
or precinct, shall, in addition to being exercised by members of its 
local legislative body, as at present, rest with any number of its voters 
equal to fifteen per centum of the number of votes cast within its 
lim its at the last preceding general election before such proposal. The 
method to be employed in so proposing measures shall be that known 
as the “initiative.” 

Sec. 3. The right to demand the referendum on any law of the State 
may be exercised by seven per centum of the voters of the State filing 
a petition with the secretary of state designating the law and demand¬ 
ing its submission to a vote of the people. The right to demand the 
referendum on any local law or ordinance of a political subdivision of 
the State, as heretofore described, may be exercised by fifteen per 
centum of the voters of that political subdivision filing their petition 
with the clerk of the county, city, town, or district, as the case may 
be. The initiative shall be exercised in like manner by filing the 
petition of like number of voters with the officer designated above to 
receive the demand for the referendum. All demands for the initia¬ 
tive and for the referendum shall be filed with the secretary of state 
at least six months before the general election at which they are to be 
submitted to the people. 

Sec. 4. No act passed by the legislative assembly shall become a 
law in less time than six months after its passage, except in cases of 
extraordinary emergency, which shall be stated in said act; and if 
within six months after the passage of any act a petition of seven per 
centum of the legal voters of the State shall be filed with the secretary 
of state, asking for the repeal of such law or laws, the secretary of 
state shall order an election for the rejection or acceptance of such 
law or laws; and if at such election a majority of the votes cast therefor 
shall be “Yes,” such law or laws shall become void; and if less than 
a majority be “Yes,” the same shall become a law. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


295 


Sec. 5. No election, as provided for in tliis amendment, shall he 
ordered more than once during any year, at which times all bills shall 
be voted upon which may have been petitioned for, as provided for in 
either the initiative or referendum. 

Sec. 6 . The election for acceptance or rejection of all laws provided 
for in this amendment shall be held on the last Monday of the eighth 
month following the adjournment of the legislative assembly, at which 
time all bills which may have passed the legislative assembly, and 
which may be petitioned for the repeal thereof, shall be voted upon as 
in this amendment provided; and if within six months after the 
adjournment of the legislative assembly no such petition for the repeal 
or passage of any law proposed or passed by the legislative assembly 
shall become laws, as provided for in the constitution of Oregon. 

Sec. 7. No one shall be qualified to vote at any election held for the 
purpose herein named who is not able to write and read the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States and the State of Oregon in the English lan¬ 
guage, and who is not a citizen of the United States, and who has not 
registered at least thirty days prior to such election, as may be pro¬ 
vided by law. 

Sec. 8. The legislative assembly or the people of the State of Oregon 
may have the power to provide by law for the carrying into effect the 
provisions of this amendment. 

Sec. 9. Any portion of the constitution of this State or any law in 
conflict with this amendment is hereby repealed. 

THE NEW JERSEY AMENDMENT. 

[Proposed amendments to Article IV of the constitution of the State of New Jersey, embodying 
the right of direct legislation by the people.] 

Amend article 4 by striking out paragraph 1, section 1, and insert 
the following in lieu thereof: 

POWER TO ENACT. 

1. The legislative power upon all measures for the government of the whole State 
shall be exercised by the senate and general assembly, and, in addition thereto, 
shall be vested in the electors of the State qualified to vote for members of the 
senate and general assembly. The legislative power upon all measures for the 
government of any municipal division of the State (such as county, city, town, 
township, borough, village, and so forth) shall be exercised by the legislative body 
thereof, and by the senate and general assembly, and, in addition thereto, shall be 
vested in the qualified electors thereof. 

THE RIGHT TO REJECT. 

2. The right to reject any measure passed by the senate and general assembly 
affecting the whole State shall be vested in the electors of the State qualified to 
vote for members of the senate and general assembly; the right to reject any 
measure affecting less than the whole State, passed by the senate and general 
assembly, shall be vested in the qualified electors of each municipal division in so 
far as the measure shall affect such division; and the right to reject any measure 
passed by the legislative body of any municipal division of the State (such as 
county, city, town, township, borough, village, and so forth) shall be vested in the 
qualified electors thereof. 


TO MAKE RIGHTS EFFECTIVE. 

3. The senate and general assembly, at its first session after the adoption of this 
amendment, shall, and when necessary from time to time thereafter may, pass 
laws to carry the amendment into effect. Such laws may provide that measures 
for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety shall take 
effect immediately, but must provide that no other measure shall go into effect 
until the expiration of a period fixed by the legislature for filing petitions for a 


296 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


vote of the electors on any bill passed; and if such a petition shall be filed, then 
not until a vote is had thereon. Should the law or laws to carry the provisions of 
this amendment into effect not be passed, as hereinbefore required, or, if passed, 
be objected to by qualified electors, they, in number not less than five per centum 
of the votes cast at the last election for members of the general assembly, may, 
within ninety days after the adjournment of any legislature, sign and file with the 
secretary of state a petition or petitions to enact a law or laws for such purpose, 
and the secretary of state shall submit the law as passed by the senate and general 
assembly, if any, and such law or laws proposed by the petitioners, to the vote of 
the qualified electors, at the next regular State election, for a choice thereof, and 
the law or laws in favor of which the largest number of votes shall then be cast 
shall be declared adopted. 

TO LIMIT* REPEAL. 

4. Any measure enacted by a vote of the qualified electors shall not be repealed 
or altered without a vote of the electors on the proposed repeal or alteration. 

DECLARATION. 

5. Nothing in the constitution shall be taken or construed to limit the foregoing 
powers of legislation vested in the qualified electors, nor to require the presenta¬ 
tion to or approval by the governor, or any other officer, of any law enacted by a 
vote of the electors, and all provisions therein in conflict herewith are hereby 
rescinded and annulled. 

6. Amend paragraph five of section seven of article four of the constitution by 
adding thereto “except such laws as may be passed by vote of the electors, a*s 
provided in paragraph one of section one of this article, and such laws shall begin 
as follows: Be it enacted by the people of the State of New Jersey.” 


Appendix No. 57. 

[The Direct Legislation Record, March, 1898.] 

DIRECT LEGISLATION CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 

[Note. —This amendment has been prepared by the editor with great 
care, after collating a number of former drafts. It has been submit¬ 
ted to a number of gentlemen expert in drafting laws and their 
suggestions embodied in it. It has been officially indorsed by the 
executive committee of the National League. This indorsement 
will not prevent their indorsing other and better amendments in the 
future, but we now think it the best yet drafted.] 

Section 1 . The legislative power of this State is inherent and shall 
be vested in the electors of this State, and also shall be vested, subject 
to acceptance or rejection by the electors of this State, in a general 
assembly, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives. 

The legislative power of any municipal division of this State (such 
as county, city, town, township, school district, borough, village, etc.), 
on its own municipal matters, is inherent and shall be vested in the 
electors of each municipal division, subject to such laws of a general 
nature having uniform operation throughout the whole State as the 
electors or the general assembly may enact. 

Sec. 2. One-fourth of either house of the general assembly shall 
have the power, by filing a properly signed petition with the secre¬ 
tary of state, to refer any act or part of an act to the electors affected 
thereby, at the next election, not held within two months of the date 
of filing the petition, only to take effect if approved by a majority of 
those voting thereon, if it is an unenacted measure, and if it is a meas¬ 
ure already enacted, to be repealed from the date of the voting, pro¬ 
viding a majority of those voting thereon vote against it. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


297 


The general assembly, by a majority vote in each house, may refer 
any measure to a vote of the electors alfected thereby at a special 
election to be held at least two months after the passage of the act. 

Sec. 3. Ten thousand electors of the State of-shall have the 

power to require that any act or part of an act passed by the general 
assembly shall be referred to the electors alfected thereby at the 
next general election, to take effect if approved by a majority of those 
voting thereon, by filing their signed demand with the secretary of 
state not more than ninety days after the adjournment of the general 
assembly which passed the act, earlier than which date no law or part 
of a law can become operative. Any law whose reference is properly 
petitioned for shall not take effect till approved by a majority of 
those voting thereon. All laws for the immediate preservation of the 
public peace, health, and safety may go into immediate operation if 
passed by a three-fourths vote of the members elected respectively to 
each house, provided that such laws shall be considered as repealed 
from the date of the voting when the referendum is demanded by 
petition and the law is rejected at the polls. 

Sec. 4. Ten thousand electors of the State of-shall have the 

power to propose any law or amendment to the constitution of this 
State and require that it be referred to the electors affected thereby, 
if it is not a law enacted by the general assembly as petitioned for, at 
the first general election occurring at least two months for a law and 
six months for a constitutional amendment after such demand shall 
have been filed with the secretary of state, to become a law or part of 
the constitution if approved by a majority of those voting thereon. 

Sec. 5. Whenever any law or part of a law shall have been declared 
unconstitutional by any State court, the executive shall submit it to 
all the electors the same as if it had been initiated by ten thousand 
electors, and if approved by a majority of those voting thereon, it shall 
become a law of the State, notwithstanding anything in the consti¬ 
tution to the contrary. 

Sec. 6. Until laws are enacted specially providing for the enforce¬ 
ment of this amendment the secretary of state and all other officers, 
in referring measures, providing ballots, and all other necessary mat¬ 
ters, shall be guided by the general election laws and the provisions 
of acts heretofore passed referring laws and constitutional amend¬ 
ments to the electors for acceptance or rejection, supplemented by 
such reasonable action as may be necessary to render this constitu¬ 
tional provision self-executing. 


Appendix No. 58. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, September, 1897, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 
STATE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. 

I. LEGISLATIVE REFERENDUM. 

One-fourth of either house of the State legislature shall have the 
power to refer any act or part of an act to the voters affected thereby, 
at the next general election, only to take effect if approved by a 
majority of those voting thereon. 

II. citizens’ referendum. 

Five thousand voters of New Jersey shall have power to require 
that any act or part of an act passed by the State legislature shall be 





298 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


referred to the voters affected thereby at the next general election, 
only to take effect if approved by a majority of those voting thereon, 
by filing their demand with the secretary of state not more than ninety 
days after the adjournment of the legislature which passed the act, 
earlier than which date no law or part of a law whose reference is 
not called for under this section shall become operative. 

in. citizens’ initiative. 

Ten thousand voters of New Jersey shall have power to propose any 
law or amendment to a law or to the constitution of the State of New 
Jersey and require that it be referred to all the voters affected thereby, 
to become a law or a part of the constitution if approved by a majority 
of those voting thereon, at the first general election occurring at least 
two weeks after such demand shall have been filed with the secretary 
of state. 

IV. UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS. 

Whenever any law or part of a law shall have been declared uncon¬ 
stitutional by any State court, the executive shall submit it to all the 
voters the same as if it had been initiated by 10,000 voters, and if 
approved by a majority of those voting, it shall be a law of the State 
notwithstanding anything in the constitution to the contrary. 

V. ARRANGEMENT. 

Until laws are enacted especially providing for the enforcement of 
this amendment, the secretary of state, in referring measures provid¬ 
ing for ballots and all other necessary matters, shall be guided by the 
general election laws and the provisions of the acts heretofore passed 
referring constitutional amendments to the legal voters for approval 
or rejection. 

VI. EXEMPTIONS. 

All laws for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, 
or safety may be exempted from the operation of this amendment if 
passed by a three-fourths vote of each legislative body. 


Appendix No. 59. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1898.] 

MUNICIPAL DIRECT-LEGISLATION BILL. 

[Note.— This bill has been prepared with great care by the editor, 
after collating a number of the past bills. It has been submitted to a 
number of gentlemen expert in drafting laws, and their suggestions 
have been embodied in it. It has been officially indorsed by the exec¬ 
utive committee of the National League. This indorsement will not 
prevent their indorsing later other and better bills, but we now think 
it the best bill for the purpose drafted. ] 

Section 1. The legislative power of any municipal division of the 
State on its own municipal matters is inherent and shall be vested in 
the electors of each municipal division, subject only to the constitu¬ 
tion and general laws of the State. 

Sec. 2. The words “municipal division ” or “ municipalities ” in this 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 299 

act mean county, city, town, township, school district, borough, vil¬ 
lage, and any other political division which may be made. 

The word “ ordinance v in this act means ordinances, resolves, 
orders, agreements, contracts, franchises, and any measure which it is 
in the power of the lawmakers or the electors of any municipality to 
enact. 

The word “lawmakers” in this act means city council, mayor and 
city council, school commissioners, board of public works, board of free¬ 
holders, and any other body which has power to enact an ordinance. 

The word “electors” in this act means persons who are qualified to 
vote for the lawmakers in the municipal division affected. 

Sec. 3. One-fourth of the lawmakers of any municipality shall have 
the power, by filing their signed demand with the clerk of the law¬ 
makers, and if the two are not the same person, a duplicate with the 
officer who has charge of preparing the ballots and of elections, to 
refer any ordinance to the electors at the next regular election not 
held within thirty days of the date of filing, only to take effect if it is 
approved by a majority of those voting thereon, or if it is an ordinance 
already in effect, to be repealed if a majority of those voting thereon 
vote against it. 

A majority of the lawmakers, by resolution, may refer any ordinance 
at a regular or at a special election, to be held within sixty and not 
less than thirty days after the passage of the resolution. 

Sec. 4. In municipalities where the preceding gubernatorial vote 
was 1,000 or under, the electors in number not less than 10 per cent 
of the preceding gubernatorial vote; in municipalities where the pre¬ 
ceding gubernatorial vote was between 1,000 and 5,000, the electors 
in number not less than 7 \ per cent of the preceding gubernatorial 
vote, and in municipalities where the preceding gubernatorial vote 
was 5,000 or over, the electors in number not less than 5 per cent of 
the preceding gubernatorial vote, shall have the power to require that 
any ordinance passed by their lawmakers shall be referred to the 
electors at the next regular election not held within thirty days of fil¬ 
ing, by filing their signed demand with the clerk of the lawmakers, 
and if the two are not the same person, a duplicate, without signatures, 
but with the affidavit of two electors as to the number of signers, with 
the officer who has charge of preparing ballots and of elections, within 
sixty days after the passage of the ordinance by the lawmakers, 
earlier than which date no ordinance can become operative. Any 
ordinance whose reference is properly petitioned for shall not take 
effect till approved by a majority of those voting thereon. 

Sec. 5. In municipalities where the preceding gubernatorial vote 
was 1,000 or under, the electors in number not less than 10 per cent 
of the preceding gubernatorial vote; in municipalities where the pre¬ 
ceding gubernatorial vote was between 1,000 and 5,000, the electors in 
number not less than 7 \ per cent of the preceding gubernatorial vote; 
in municipalities where the preceding gubernatorial vote was 5,000 
or over, the electors in number not less than 5 per cent of the preceding 
gubernatorial vote, shall have the power to propose any ordinance 
and, unless it is enacted as petitioned for within sixty days, to have it 
referred to the electors at the next regular election not held within 
ninety days of the date of filing, to become operative only if approved 
by a majority of those voting thereon, by filing their signed demand 
with the clerk of the lawmakers, and if the two are not the same per¬ 
son, a duplicate, without signatures, but with the affidavit of two 
electors as to the number of signers, with the officer who has charge 
of preparing the ballots and of elections. 


300 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Sec. 6. If double the number of electors required for either the citi¬ 
zens’ referendum or initiative petitions shajl request in such petitions 
that the ordinance therein petitioned for shall be submitter! to the 
electors at a special election, the officer who has charge of the elections 
shall submit it at a special election, which he shall call not less than 
thirty nor more than sixty days after the filing of the petition, unless 
it is an ordinance initiated by the electors and passed as initiated by 
the lawmakers within thirty days of filing. 

Sec. 7. All ordinances for the immediate preservation of the public 
peace, health, and safety, or items of appropriations for current 
expenses which do not exceed the corresponding appropriations for 
the preceding year, may go into operation at once if passed by a three- 
fourths vote of the lawmakers, and if a properly signed petition for 
their reference is filed they shall remain in force till a vote is had on 
them and a majority of those voting thereon vote against them, in 
which case they shall be considered repealed from the date of the vote. 

Sec. 8. The petitions shall be written or printed and shall contain 
the full text of the proposed ordinance. The legislative referendum 
petitions need, in addition, the signatures of the lawmakers petitioning 
underneath the statement that they require the ordinance submitted 
to the electors at the next regular election not held within thirty days 
of filing. The citizens’ referendum and initiative petitions require 
the signatures of the petitioning electors, with their residence [either 
street and number or farm name or location] and at least one out of 
every hundred or fraction thereof names signed to a petition shall 
make oath before a competent officer that they are duly qualified 
electors, residing as stated, and that their signatures are genuine and 
that they believe all the other persons who signed are duly qualified 
electors residing as stated, and that their signatures are genuine. 
The citizens’ referendum petitions shall state above the signatures 
that they require the ordinance whose text has been given and which 
was passed by the lawmakers on [fill in the date here] submitted to 
the electors at the next regular election not held within thirty days 
of filing or at a special election, if that is petitioned for. The citi¬ 
zens’ initiative petition shall state over the signatures that the ordi¬ 
nance whose text is given, unless passed by the lawmakers within 
sixty days, shall be submitted to the electors at the next regular elec¬ 
tion not held within ninety days of filing, or at a special election, if 
that is petitioned for. 

Sec. 9. If the lawmakers shall alter or amend any petitioned-for ordi¬ 
nance before passing, or if more than one ordinance for the same pur¬ 
pose be petitioned for reference to the electors, then the ordinance as 
petitioned for shall be set forth on the ballot by its title and shall be 
designated: “ As petitioned, Form A,” and the ordinance as altered 
or amended by the lawmakers shall be set forth by its title and desig¬ 
nated: “As amended by the lawmakers, Form B;” or where more 
than one ordinance is petitioned for, the one having the largest num¬ 
ber of signatures shall be set forth by its title and designated: “As 
petitioned by [here insert name of the first petitioner] and others, 
Form A;” the next largest shall follow, with similar designation, save 
that it read “Form B” and so on, and below shall be the statement: 

“ I vote for Form A.” ( ) 

“I vote for Form B.” ( ) 

etc. 

“I vote against both” (or all) ( ) 


301 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

If the votes against are more than the combined votes for the differ¬ 
ent forms, all the forms are rejected. If the combined votes for the 
different forms are more than the votes against, then the form having 
the largest number of votes shall become an ordinance and the others 
shall be deemed rejected. All ballots which have a vote for two forms 
or which have a vote against and for one or more forms shall be 
thrown out. 

Sec. 10. If there is but one proposal submitted the ballot shall be so 
printed as to give each voter a clear opportunity to designate by a 
cross (X) in the parenthesis at the right his answer, “Yes” or “No,” 
as accepting or rejecting. 

Sec. 11. Special elections under this act shall be called by the clerk 
of the municipality, and lie shall cause a notice of such elections and of 
votings at regular elections to be printed in one or more newspapers 
published in such municipality, if any, and also shall post copies of the 
ordinance or ordinances to be voted on, with notices of the votings, in 
the office of the clerk and in three or more conspicuous places in such 
municipality, at least twenty days prior to the election. The clerk 
shall have the ordinance to be voted on printed and shall furnish one 
copy to each elector upon personal or written application for at least 
fifteen days before the election. The notice provided in this section 
should designate where such copies can be obtained. If the law¬ 
makers authorize it, the clerk may sell not to exceed half as much 
space as the ordinance requires, for advertising, and the proceeds 
shall be used to pay the expenses of printing and distribution, and the 
profits over this, if any, shall go half to the clerk and half to the 
municipality; but if there is a loss the clerk shall stand it, unless he 
is absolutely directed to do it by the lawmakers. 

Sec. 12. Whoever knowingly or willfully makes a false affidavit or 
takes a false oath or signs a false certificate regarding the qualifica¬ 
tions of any person to sign petitions under this act, or whoever falsely 
makes or willfully destroys a petition or any part of a petition or signs 
another person’s name or files any petition knowing any part of it to 
be falsely made, or suppresses any petition or part of one which has 
been filed, or whoever signs any petition under this act, knowing that 
he is not a qualified elector in the municipality where said petition is 
made, or whoever aids or abets any person in doing any of the acts 
above mentioned, whoever coerces or bribes or gives or pays any money 
or thing of value to any person, directly or indirectly, to induce him to 
sign a petition or to prevent him from signing a petition, shall be pun¬ 
ished by a fine of not over $300 or imprisonment in the county jail 
not over one year, or by both fine and imprisonment. 

Any clerk of a municipality or other officer whose duty it is who 
refuses or neglects to comply with the provisions of this act shall be 
punished by a fine not over $5,000 or by imprisonment in the peniten¬ 
tiary not over five years, or by both fine and imprisonment. 

Sec. 13. The provisions of the statutes of this State relating to the 
election officers, voting places, election apparatus and blanks, prepa¬ 
ration and form of ballots, information to electors, delivery of ballots, 
calling of elections, conduct of elections, manner of voting, records 
and certificates of elections and recounts of votes, etc., so far as appli¬ 
cable, shall apply to voting on ordinances by the electors under the 
provisions of this act. 


302 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Appendix No. 60. 

THE DIRECT LEGISLATION LAWS OF SWITZERLAND. 

[From United States Consular Report, Vol. XLVI, No. 170.] 

I.—REFERENDUM LAW. 

Art. 1 . Federal laws, as well as federal enactments which are bind¬ 
ing, if not of an urgent nature, shall be submitted to the vote of the 
people on the demand of at least 30,000 Swiss citizens, or of the gov- 
ments of at least eight cantons. 

Art. 2. The Federal Assembly will decide whether a federal act is 
binding or urgent, and the decision has in every case to be expressly 
incorporated in said act:* In such case the Federal Council will pro¬ 
vide for the execution of the law and have it entered on the statute 
book. 

Art. 3. All federal laws, as well as acts, which do not conflict with 
article 2 are to be published immediately after their enactment, and a 
sufficient number of copies must be sent to the cantonal governments. 

Art. 4. If the referendum is demanded by the people or by the can¬ 
tons, the same must be filed within ninety days, counting from the 
day of the publication of the law or the enactment in the official organ 
of the confederation. 

Art. 5. The demand for an election is to be in writing and addressed 
to the Federal Council; citizens who wish to sign the demand must do 
so in person; anyone signing another’s name shall be subjected to 
punishment for forgery; the authorities of the respective communities 
must certify as to the voting right of electors whose signatures are 
appended to the referendum demand; no fee shall be collected for 
such certificates. 

Art. 6. If a number of cantons make the demand (referendum), it 
has to be made through the canton councils, provided that the can¬ 
tonal constitution does not prescribe other rules. 

Art. 7. If, after the expiration of the ninety days dating from the 
first publication of a federal law or enactment in the official federal 
organ, no demand for an election has been made by the people, or if 
such demand has been made within the period named, but the official 
count shows that the requisite 30,000 signatures or eight cantonal 
governments have not been obtained, the Federal Council will declare 
the respective law or enactment in force, and will order the same incor¬ 
porated in the statutes. 

The signatures asking for a referendum will be published in the fed¬ 
eral organs, showing the number of signatures from each canton or 
community; further, the demands made by the cantonal governments 
in accordance with article 6 will be published. Moreover, the Fed¬ 
eral Council will report the result to the Federal Assembly at its next 
meeting and submit the records relating thereto. 

Art. 8. If, on the other hand, it is found upon examination of the 
application that the request has been signed by the requisite number 
of cantons, then the Federal Council will order the question submitted 
to the vote of the people. It will also inform the cantonal govern¬ 
ments thereof, and order the enactment referring thereto to be pub¬ 
lished without delay. 

Art. 9. All the citizens of Switzerland will cast their vote on the 
same day, which will be named by the Federal Council. 

Art. 10. Every male Swiss citizen who has attained his twentieth 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 303 

year is entitled to vote, provided he is not debarred therefrom by the 
law of the canton of which he is a resident. 

Art. 11 . Each canton has to provide for the election within its ter¬ 
ritory, in accordance with the Federal prescriptions relative thereto. 

Art. 12. A record of the vote shall be kept in each community or 
each district. Such record must contain the exact number of persons 
entitled to vote and the number of yeas and nays that have been cast 
for or against the law in question. 

Art. 13. The cantonal governments must send these tally lists, within 
ten days, to the Federal Council, holding the ballots at the disposal of 
said Council. By these records the Federal Council will determine 
the result of the election. 

Art. 14. The Federal law or the Federal enactment is to be regarded 
as in force if a majority of the votes cast have been found in favor of 
the same. In such cases the Federal Council will order the same 
enacted and incorporated in the Federal statutes. 

Art. 15. If, on the contrary, a majority is found to be against the 
law, the same will be declared rejected, and therefore void. 

Art. 16. In both cases the Federal Council will publish the result 
of the election and inform the Federal Assembly thereof at its next 
meeting. 

Art. 17. The Federal Council is charged with the execution of the 
present law. 

SPECIAL REGULATIONS. 

Article 1 . The above law is to be published in the official Federal 
organ and a sufficient number of copies printed to be distributed 
among the several cantonal governments. 

Art. 2. All paragraphs apply to the law itself. 

Art. 3. These regulations are in force beginning from this date. 

Art. 4. The Federal Council is charged with the execution of the 
same 

II.—INITIATIVE LAW. 

Article 1. A revision of the Federal constitution, as a whole or in 
part, can at any time be demanded by way of the initiative. (See 
articles 118, 120, and 121 of the constitution.) 

Art. 2. If anyone desires to use this franchise an application signed 
by at least 50,000 voters, who must be Swiss citizens, is to be addressed 
in writing to the Federal Council, who will submit the same to the 
Federal Assembly. This application must contain the subject of the 
initiative. 

Art. 3. Any citizen wishing to make such application must sign 
it personally. Anyone signing another’s name will be indicted for 
forgery and punished accordingly. 

Art. 4. Each list containing the signatures must name the canton 
and the community of which the applicants are residents. To be valid 
it must also specify: (1) The text of the initiative; (2) the text of arti¬ 
cle 3 of this law; (3) a certificate of the city authorities, properly 
dated, showing the applicants to be entitled to vote on Federal laws 
and that they are qualified electors in their communities. No fee 
shall be collected for this certificate. 

Art. 5. Having received the revision demand, the Federal Council 
will canvass the signatures and determine the number entitled to vote. 
Debarred from voting will be: (1) Those whose signatures have not 
been certified to within the period of six months, dating retrogres- 
S. Doc. 26-52 


304 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


sively from the day on which the revision demand is received by the 
Federal Council; (2) the signatures contained in an invalid list (see 
article 4); (3; those signatures the registration of which is missing, 
incomplete, or incorrect. Any signatures showing to be in the same 
handwriting are classed as invalid, and will not be counted. The 
Federal Council will issue reports in its official organ showing the 
result of the investigation, and will submit the same to the Federal 
Assembly at its first meeting, together with all other acts relating 
thereto. 

Art. 6. If a demand for a revision, or an initiative requiring a total 
revision of the constitution is found valid, the question whether this 
revision shall take effect must be determined by the vote of the whole 
Swiss people. If the majority is in favor of revision both the State 
Council and the National Council must be reelected, and the new 
incoming councils must proceed to revise the constitution in toto. 

Art. 7. If the initiative demands the repeal, abolition, or change of 
certain articles of the constitution, and if the same is framed in the 
form of a general bill, both councils will have to decide within one 
year whether they agree with the demand or not. If they agree, they 
will provide for the necessary legislation, in accordance with article 121 
of the constitution. If they reject the demand, or can not come to a 
decision within the stated period, the Federal Council will then call a 
general election. If the majority of Swiss citizens vote in favor of the 
demand the Federal Assembly shall, without delay, take the matter 
in hand and make the required revision, after which the revised arti¬ 
cles will be again submitted to the vote of the Avhole Swiss voters. 

Art. 8. If, on the other hand, the demand is in the form of an elab¬ 
orate project, the two councils shall decide, within a period not exceed¬ 
ing one year, whether they agree with this project or not. 

Art. 9. If the two councils can not come to a unanimous conclusion 
regarding said project it will be subjected to the vote of the people 
and the vote of the cantons, as also is the case if the Federal Assem¬ 
bly concludes to agree to the project. 

Art. 10. If the Federal Assembly decides not to agree to the demand 
the people will vote on the question. The Federal Assembly has a 
right, however, to recommend to the people the rejection of the project 
or propose a new one prepared b} r the Assembly. 

Art. 11. In case the Federal Assembly proposes a special elaborate 
project in opposition to the demand for revision the people will have 
to vote on the two questions, as follows: (1) Do you accept the project 
for revision demanded by the initiative? or (2) do you accept the 
project of the Federal Assembly? 

Art. 12. The blank and invalid ballots are not counted in deter¬ 
mining the result of the vote. Ballots which answer one question with 
“yes” and the other with “no,” or both questions with “no,” are 
valid. Ballots which answer both questions with “yes” are void. 

Art. 13. The project which is accepted by the majority of the voters 
and the majority of the cantons will become a law. 

Art. 14. The records of the vote must contain the number of resi¬ 
dents in the community entitled to vote, the number of ballots, the 
number of invalid votes, and, finally, the number of yeas and nays 
for each of the questions. 

Art. 15. If on the same article of the constitution several demands 
for revision have been made, they must be voted on separately in 
accordance with the date of their filing. 

Art. 16. As for the rest, the prescriptions of the Federal law of June 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 305 

17, 1874, relative to Federal election laws and regulations, must be fol¬ 
lowed. 

. 17. The Federal law of December 5, 1867, relative to the con¬ 

stitutional revision demand, is hereby repealed, as well as the Fed¬ 
eral Council’s prescriptions dated May 2, 1879. 

Art. 18. The Federal Council shall publish this law and the date of 
its enactment in accordance with the prescriptions of the Federal law 
of June 17, 1874, relative to Federal election laws and decisions of the 
Federal Council. 


Appendix No. 61. 

[From the Direct Legislation Record, December, 1896, a quarterly published at Newark, N. J.] 

MUNICIPAL REFERENDUM—THE LAW IN GENEVA, SWITZERLAND. 

[Translated by Miss Ella Levin, of New York.] 

Art. I. Laws or resolutions of the grand council are submitted to 
the approval of the people when the referendum is demanded by 350 
voters, or more, in the course of the thirty days following the publi¬ 
cation of such laws or resolutions, within the limits herein specified. 

Art. II. The referendum can not be used against the yearly ex¬ 
penses and receipts, taken in its entirety. Only the following special 
extensions of the law can be submitted to referendum. 

(a) A new tax or the increase of the tax already imposed. 

(b) Or remission of taxes, or a loan under another form. The 
grand council indicates in the budget the articles which are entitled 
to the thirty days’ delay. 

Art. III. The referendum can not be exercised against laws or reso¬ 
lutions of exceptional urgency. The decision, as to urgency, is within 
the jurisdiction of the grand council. 

Art. IV. In a case where the 350 signatures are obtained, the coun¬ 
cil of state shall, within the maximum delay allowed, submit the law 
or resolution to the popular vote, and the refusal or acceptation of 
the law shall be decided by the majority of the votes. Votings on 
the law or resolutions submitted to the popular approval shall take 
place according to the mode prescribed by the constitution and the 
laws for constitutional votings. 

Note by Philip Jamin, of Geneva.— Several years after the intro¬ 
duction of this law the politicians tried to modify it, in order to make 
the referendum illusive. 

Referring to the project intended to hinder the free exercise of the 
referendum, a prominent paper says: 

The signatures, to be valid, must be given in a designated place for each 
commune. This place is by the authority municipal, and approved by the council 
of state. They can not be taken at their homes, nor can the gendarmes in their 
official places. 

And the same men who pretend to have the greatest interest m the peace of the 
citizens, while preventing signatures from*being collected, do not feel restrained 
from making collections of signatures and inquiries at homes, and even at schools. 

How many persons are there who would dare refuse a signature to the collectors, 
for fear of revealing their condition? To keep their places at all price is the only 
care of the lower officials. Is it not plain, etc.? 

This article is called “A Quand les Gendarmes, and reflects the senti¬ 
ments of the people who are opposed to the project of the politicians* 
S. Doc. 340-20 



306 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

In July, 1891, the initiative was adopted in Geneva. Here is the 
law: 

Art. I. The initiative belongs to the voters and to the members of the grand 
council of state. 

Art. II. Two thousand five hundred voters, or more, have the right to petition 
the grand council. 

First. To propose a law or resolution. 

Second. To demand the elaboration of a law or resolution. 

Art. III. The signatures of the voters should be given in the commune where 
they exercise the right to vote. The authenticity of the signatures is certified by 
the municipal authority under the control of the council of state. 

Art. IV. The grand council is obliged to enter into the matter and to come to 
a final decision on the object of the petition within six months after the reading 
of it, and in a public meeting. They can, first, adopt, amend, or reject the project 
in the law or resolution directly presented; second, enact a law on the subject of 
the proposition. 

In all these cases (every case) the decision of the grand council shall be submitted 
to the vote of the people within forty days; but whenever the proposition comes 
from the people in a complete and concise form, this project shall be submitted to 
the people with the decision ot the grand council. 

Art. V. The laws for other votings shall regulate all that concerns the execu¬ 
tion of this present constitutional exactment. 


Appendix No. 62. 

REFERENDUM BILL. NEW SOUTH WALES. 

This public bill originated in the legislative assembly, and, hav¬ 
ing this day passed, is now ready for presentation to the legislative 
council for its concurrence. 

F. W. WEBB, 

Clerk of the Legislative Assembly. 

Legislative Assembly Chamber, 

Sydney , ^ November, 1896, a. m. 

AN ACT to provide means of legislation in cases of disagreement between the 
legislative council and the legislative assembly. 

Be it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the 
advice and consent of the legislative council and legislative assembly 
of New South Wales in parliament assembled , and by the authority of 
the same, as follows: 

1. This act may be cited as the “referendum act of eighteen hun¬ 
dred and ninety-six.” 

2. In the construction of this act the following expressions shall 
have the meanings hereby assigned to them, respectively (that is to 
say): 

“Election” shall mean an election of any member or members of 
the legislatively assembly. 

“Electoral district” shall mean a district entitled by law for the 
time being to return a member to serve in the legislative assembly. 

“Electors” shall mean persons for the time being entitled to vote 
at an election. 

“Electors’ vote” shall mean a vote of the electors in all the elec¬ 
toral districts of the colony taken under the provisions of this act for 
the purpose of deciding whether a bill shall be passed or not. 

“General election” shall mean an election held in all the electoral 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 307 

districts of the colony, consequent upon the dissolution or expiry of 
the legislative assembly. 

3. If after the passing of this act any bill shall have been passed by 
the legislative assembly in each of two consecutive sessions, and shall 
in each of such sessions have been presented to the legislative council 
for its concurrence, and on both such occasions one or other of the 
following things shall have happened, namely: (a) The said council 
shall have rejected the said bill; or (b) The said council shall have 
failed to return the said bill to the said assembly with or without 
any amendment within two months from the time when it was so pre¬ 
sented for their concurrence, not having been prevented by the close 
of the session or the adjournment of the said assembly; or (c) The 
said council shall have returned the said bill to the said assembly 
with any amendment, but no agreement shall have been come to 
between the said houses with regard to such amendment within two 
months after the said bill shall have been returned as aforesaid, not 
having been prevented by the close of the session or the adjournment 
of the said assembly, it shall be lawful for the legislative assembly, 
upon resolution for that purpose passed by a majority of not less than 
one-half of the total number of members on the roll of the said 
assembly for the time being, to cause such bill as finally agreed to by 
the said assembly to be referred to the electors’ vote. 

4. The electors’ vote upon all bills referred as aforesaid shall be 
taken after the close of the session during which such bills, respec¬ 
tively, shall have been last passed by the legislative assembly and 
before the commencement of any other session: 

(1) In the case of the dissolution or expiry of the legislative assem¬ 
bly at the close of such session, the electors’ vote shall be taken at 
the same time and place as the polling for the general election held 
in consequence of such dissolution or expiry. 

(2) In all other cases the electors’ vote shall be taken at such time 
and place as are required by law for the time being to be appointed 
for such polling in the event of a dissolution or expiry of the said 
assembly. 

5. At the close of every session in which any resolution shall have 
been passed as aforesaid, for referring a bill to the electors’ vote, 
writs for that purpose shall be issued by the governor, with the advice 
of the executive council: 

(1) In the case of a dissolution or expiry of the legislative assembly 
at the close of such session, such writs shall be issued concurrently 
with the writs for the general election held in consequence of such 
dissolution or expiry. 

(2) In all other cases such writs shall be issued within such time 
after the publication in the Gazette of the proclamation proroguing 
parliament as is fixed by law for the time being for the issue of writs 
for a general election after the publication of the proclamation dis¬ 
solving parliament. 

(3) In every case such writs shall be directed to the same persons 
as writs for a general election are required by law for the time being 
to be directed to, and shall state the day fixed for voting at the several 
polling places and the day on which such writs are returnable. 

(4) All such writs shall be made returnable upon the expiration of 
such time after the issue thereof as is fixed by law for the time being 
for the return of writs for a general election. 

(5) All such writs shall set out the short title, or the title if there 
be no short title, of every bill so referred to the electors’ vote. 


308 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


(6) At or before the time of the issue of such writs notice shall be 
given by proclamation published in the Gazette of the date fixed for 
voting as aforesaid, and of the full text of the said bill. 

(7) Copies of the proclamation in the last preceding subsection men¬ 
tioned shall also be exhibited at all post-offices and court-houses 
throughout the colony for at least fifteen days before the date fixed 
for voting as aforesaid, and other copies thereof shall be procurable 
from the government printing office, or from any post-office. 

6. The persons entitled to vote at the taking of the electors’ vote 
shall be those entitled by law to vote at an election at the time of the 
taking of such vote, and the mode of tendering the vote of an elector 
and of ascertaining his right to vote shall be the same as at such 
election. 

7. Every enactment contained in any act for the time being regu¬ 
lating and making provision for the holding of general elections, and 
the doing of the acts directed and authorized by law for the purposes 
thereof (except such parts thereof as relate exclusively to candidates 
at elections, and except as may otherwise be provided in this act, or 
any regulation made thereunder) shall be deemed in like manner to 
regulate and make provision for the taking of the electors’ vote and 
the doing of the like acts in connection therewith. 

8. Every power, duty, and liability conferred or imposed upon, and 
every direction given to, any returning officer, deputy returning offi¬ 
cer, poll clerk, scrutineer, or other person, by law for the time being, 
for the purposes of the holding of general elections, shall, except 
when otherwise directed by this act, or any such regulation as afore¬ 
said, be deemed to be in like manner conferred and imposed upon 
and given to the same person for the like purposes in connection with 
and incidental to the taking of the electors’ vote: 

(1) The president of the legislative council and the speaker of the 
legislative assembly, respectively, shall each have the right of nomi¬ 
nating a person or persons in each electoral district for the purpose 
of appointing scrutineers at the taking of the electors’ vote. Every 
person so nominated shall be an elector competent to vote in such 
district at the time of taking such elector’s vote. 

(2) In so far as such duties and directions as are mentioned in this 
section have regard to the nomination of candidates, in lieu thereof 
it shall be the duty of the returning officer for each electoral district 
forthwith, upon receipt of any writ addressed to him for the taking 
of the electors’ vote upon any bill, to publish in some newspaper cir¬ 
culating in such district notice of the title of every such bill as set 
out in the said writ, and of the time and place fixed for the taking of 
such vote, and to post up the like notice in some conspicuous position 
at the principal polling place of the said district. 

(3) Every declaration required by law for the time being to be made 
at a general election by any such person as aforesaid for the due dis¬ 
charge of the duties of his office, and for the preservation of secrecy 
as to the votes recorded thereat, shall, in like manner, be made by the 
same person for the due discharge of his duties at the taking of the 
electors’ vote, and for the preservation of secrecy as to the votes 
recorded thereat. 

9. Every act or omission which would be punishable under the law 
for the time being, if the same had occurred in connection with the 
holding of an election, shall be held to constitute the like offense, 
cognizable in a like manner, and punishable by the like penalty if 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 309 

the same shall have occurred in connection with the taking of the 
electors’ vote: 

(1) The provisions of this section in regard to omissions shall 
extend to every omission of an act substituted by this act for any act 
required by law to be done in connection with the holding of elec¬ 
tions. 

(2) Nothing contained in this section shall render any person liable, 
in respect of the same act or omission, to penalties both for the 
infringement of the law relating to elections and of the provisions of 
this act. 

10. The ballot papers for taking the electors’ vote shall be printed 
and provided for use in the respective electoral districts, under the 
directions of the governor, with the advice of the executive council: 

(1) Every such ballot paper shall set out the short title, or title if 
there be no short title, of every bill upon which such vote is to be 
taken at the same time, followed in each case by the words “For” and 
“Against.” 

(2) The mode of voting in favor of the passing of any such bill shall 
be by striking out the word “Against,” and the mode of voting against 
the passing of any such bill shall be by striking out the word “For.” 

(3) No vote so recorded for or against any such bill shall be deemed 
invalid by reason of the person so voting having omitted to vote for 
or against any other bill the title whereof is included in the same 
ballot paper. 

(4) A ballot box shall be provided at each polling place to be used 
exclusively for the purposes of the electors’ vote. 

11. The persons authorized by law for the time being to ascertain 
and notify the number of votes recorded for the respective candidates 
at an election shall in like manner ascertain and notify the number 
of votes recorded for and against each bill referred to the electors’ 
vote: 

(1) The returning officer shall be entitled to record an ordinary 
vote for or against any such bill, but shall in no case be entitled to a 
casting vote. 

(2) After the taking of the electors’ vote all ballot papers and other 
books, rolls, and papers provided in connection therewith shall be 
dealt with as may be provided by law for the time being with refer¬ 
ence to the ballot papers and other books, rolls, and papers provided 
in connection with an election. 

(3) The returning officer of each electoral district shall indorse upon 
the writ directed to him as aforesaid the numberof votes recorded for 
and against each such bill in the said district, and forthwith return 
the said writ to the governor within the time specified therein. 

(4) Within one week from the return of all the said writs the gov¬ 
ernor, with the advice of the executive council, shall cause the total 
number of votes recorded for and against each bill throughout all the 
electoral districts in the colony to be published in the Gazette. 

12. If upon the taking of the electors’ vote there shall have been 
eighty thousand or more valid votes recorded upon any bill, whereof 
a majority of not less than six-elevenths shall be in favor of the pass¬ 
ing of the said bill, then, subject to the provisions respecting appeal 
hereinafter contained, such bill, in the form in which it was last 
passed as aforesaid by the legislative assembly, shall be presented by 
the speakers of the said assembly to the governor for Her Majesty’s 
assent; but if there shall not be such majority in favor of the pass¬ 
ing of the said bill, or if less than eighty thousand valid votes shall 


310 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


have been recorded upon the said bill, such bill shall be deemed 
to have lapsed, and it shall not thereafter be lawful to take the 
electors’ vote upon the same or any bill of the like purport fora period 
of three years from the day on which the electors’ vote was so taken 
thereupon, as aforesaid. 

13. The return to any writ for taking the electors’ vote may be 
appealed against in the manner provided by law for the time being 
for appealing against the return to writs for the holding of elections: 

(1) Such appeal shall be prosecuted upon the petition of fifty or 
more electors of the electoral district, the return from which is called 
in question, entitled to vote therein at the time the said vote was 
taken. 

(2) No such petition shall be received unless accompanied by the 
statutory declaration of one or more persons verifjdng the facts 
alleged therein, either from personal knowledge or from sources of 
knowledge fully set forth in the said declaration. Such declaration 
shall be taken under the provisions of the act passed in the ninth 
year of Her Majesty’s reign, entitled “An act for the more effectual 
abolition of oaths and affirmations taken and made in various depart¬ 
ments of the government of New South Wales, and to substitute 
declarations in lieu thereof, and for the suppression of voluntary and 
extrajudicial oaths and affidavits.” 

(3) The grounds of such petition shall be either that the number 
certified in any such return as having voted for or against any bill in 
such electoral district is for some specified reason erroneous, or that 
fifty or more electors were in a specified way unlawfully prevented 
from voting in the said district. 

(4) Except as provided herein, or in any regulation made as here¬ 
after provided, every enactment contained in any act for the time being 
regulating and making provision for the presentation of petitions 
against the return to writs for the holding of elections, and the pro¬ 
ceedings consequent thereupon shall be deemed in like manner, as 
nearly as may be, to regulate and make provision for the presentation 
of the petitions authorized by this section and the proceedings conse¬ 
quent thereupon: Provided , That no candidate at an election held con¬ 
currently with the taking of the electors’ vote shall be a party to any 
petition in respect thereof unless as a petitioner, or unless some charge 
is made against him in such petition. 

(5) If it shall appear that the number of the votes affected by all 
petitions so presented in respect of the same electors’ vote would not 
be sufficient to reverse the effect of the said vote as published for the 
whole colony upon any bill, all such petitions shall be dismissed; other¬ 
wise a recount may be made of the votes recorded upon such bill at 
any polling place, or a new writ may be issued for again taking the 
electors’ vote in any electoral district, the return from which has 
been appealed against, and the result of such recount or new taking 
of the electors’ vote, and its effect upon the electors’ vote for the 
whole colony, shall be published in the Gazette. 

(6) In the event of any such appeal as aforesaid being presented, 
no bill affected by such appeal shall be presented for Her Majesty’s 
assent till after the determination of such appeal and of any new 
taking of the electors' vote ordered in consequence thereof. 

14. All questions arising under the preceding section shall be dealt 
with by a joint committee of both houses, consisting of twelve mem¬ 
bers, six of whom shall be nominated by warrant under the hand of 
the president of the legislative council and six by warrant under the 


311 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


hand of the speaker of the legislative assembly, in the manner and 
subject to the conditions and with the powers enacted by the Parlia¬ 
mentary electorates and elections act of eighteen hundred and ninety- 
three with respect to the committee of elections and qualifications. 
Four members to be a quorum. 

15. The governor, with the advice of the executive council, may 
make regulations for carrying the provisions of this act into full 
effect; and all such regulations, in so far as they are not inconsistent 
with the provisions of this act, shall, on being published in the Gazette, 
have the full force of law, and shall be laid before both houses of 
Parliament within fourteen days after such proclamation if Parlia¬ 
ment be then sitting, and if not, then within fourteen days after the 
commencement of the next ensuing session. 


Appendix No. 63. 

[From Direct Legislation Record, June, 1896.] 

THE NEW ZEALAND REFERENDUM LAW. 

A BILL entitled ‘ ‘An act to refer to the electors of the colony certain motions or 
bills for their decision.” 

Whereas it is desirable to refer certain questions to the electors of 
the colony, so as to provide a system by which a direct answer, either 
in the affirmative or negative, may be obtained from the electors on 
such questions: 

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly of New Zealand in 
Parliament assembled , and by the authority of the same , as follows: 

1. The short title of this act is “The referendum act, 1895.” 

2. Whenever both houses of the General Assembly shall have passed 
a resolution in favor of submitting any motion or bill to the vote of 
the electors, or whenever the House of Representatives shall have 
passed a resolution in favor of referring any motion or bill which has 
been twice passed by such house and twice rejected by the Legisla¬ 
tive Council to a vote of the electors, then such reference shall be 
made in the manner hereinafter provided. 

3. The speaker of the Legislative Council or the speaker of the 
House of Representatives or both the speakers shall, as the case may 
require, whenever a resolution has been passed as aforesaid send a 
certificate thereof to the colonial secretary. 

4. The colonial secretary shall, not earlier than two months and not 
later than six months after receipt of such certificate, publish the same 
in the New Zealand Gazette, and shall appoint a time for the taking 
of the vote on such resolution. Due notice of the time so appointed 
for the taking of such vote shall also be given by advertisement in 
such newspapers as the colonial secretary may deem necessary, and 
by notice posted on every school building and post-office in the colony: 
Provided , That any accidental omission to make such notification at 
any particular post-office or post-offices, schoolhouse or schoolhouses, 
shall not invalidate any poll unless it can be shown that such omission 
has materially affected the result of such poll. 

5. The vote shall be taken at every polling place in the colony 
whereat votes are taken for the election of members of the House of 
Representatives and before returning officers presiding at such places, 



312 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

but not on the same day as is appointed for a general or licensing 
election. 

6. In lieu of taking the vote in the foregoing manner prescribed, it 
may be taken at the post-offices of the colony, and the postmasters 
shall fulfill the duties of returning officers. In such case the poll shall 
remain open one week, and the governor may issue regulations pro¬ 
viding for the taking thereof, and, mutatis mutandis, all the provisions 
providing for the taking of the local-option poll shall apply thereto. 

7. All the provisions of the electoral and corrupt practices acts shall, 
so far as practicable, be in force in regard to any poll taken under 
this act. 

8. The result of the vote at each polling place shall be duly certified 
by the returning officer thereat, and such certificate and all polling 
papers, duly sealed up, shall be at once forwarded to the clerk of 
Parliaments, and when he shall have received all the certificates he 
shall publish the result of the voting in the New Zealand Gazette. 
The voting papers shall be kept by the clerk of Parliaments for one * 
year. 

9. If the vote be in favor of any bill or motion submitted, then such 
bill or motion shall become law on a date to be named by the governor 
by proclamation. If the vote be in favor of any alteration of the law 
or proposal submitted otherwise than by bill, then it shall be the duty 
of the colonial secretary to at once prepare a bill to give effect to such 
alteration or proposal, and to introduce or cause to be introduced the 
same either in the Legislative Council or House of Representatives 
within ten days of the opening of the session of Parliament held next 
after such vote shall have been taken. 

10. If any motion or bill be negatived at such vote, such motion or 
bill shall not again be submitted by referendum to the electors for a 
period of three years after the taking of such vote. 

Note. —A study of this bill shows that not only is there no provision for a popu¬ 
lar initiative, but also the call for a reference to the people does not come from 
the people themselves by a petition, but it comes from one or both houses of the 
legislature. It is more properly a bill to limit the power of the upper house by a 
reference to the people. The upper house, or Legislative Council, consists of 
forty-five members nominated for life by the Crown, which is the ministry in 
power; the Lower House, or House of Representatives, are elected by the people 
for three years. The statement of the formation of the two houses is almost all 
that is needed to prove that they would not often be harmonious. Notice also in 
the tenth section that any bill which the people vote for becomes a law by procla¬ 
mation; the executive veto is done away with. While not full direct legislation, it 
is a long step. 


Appendix No. 64. 

SOUTH AUSTRALIA REFERENDUM BILL, 1895. 

[Prepared by Mr. E. L. Batchelor, M. P.] 

A BILL for an act relating to the referendum. 

Be it enacted by the governor of the Province of South Australia , 
with the advice and consent of the legislative council and house of 
assembly of the said Province in this present Parliament assembled , 
as follows: 

1. This act may be cited as “the referendum act, eighteen hundred 
and ninety-five.” 

2. In this act the word “referendum” means the submission to the 



DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


313 


vote of the electors of the said Province entitled to vote for the elec¬ 
tion of members of the house of assembly of any bill or resolution 
as provided for by this act. 

3. The following bills and resolutions shall be submitted to the ref¬ 
erendum; that is to say, all bills passed by both houses of Parlia¬ 
ment, or resolutions passed by either house of Parliament, with 
respect to which requests, as provided for by this act, have been 
received from not less than one-tenth of the whole number of electors 
entitled to vote for the election of members of the house of assembly 
that such bills or resolutions should be submitted to the referendum. 

4. If any bill shall have been twice passed by the house of assem¬ 
bly in consecutive sessions, and shall have been twice rejected by the 
legislative council, such bill may, if a resolution to that effect be 
passed by the house of assembly, be submitted to the referendum; 
and if on such submission a majority of* votes is given in favor of 
such bill, it may be assented to by Her Majesty or by the governor, 
without being passed by the legislative council, and shall thereupon 
become law. 

5. Every bill which shall be passed by both houses of Parliament, 
and every resolution passed by either house of Parliament, and every 
bill to be submitted to the referendum, as provided for in section four, 
shall be forthwith published in the Government Gazette; and no bill 
shall be assented to or resolution acted upon until at least two months 
have elapsed from the date of the publication thereof. 

6. Any elector who desires that any bill or resolution shall be sub¬ 
mitted to the referendum may obtain a request in Form A in the 
schedule hereto from the'returning officer for the district in which he 
resides, and may sign the same in the presence of such returning offi¬ 
cer, or in the presence of the clerk of the municipality or district 
council in which he resides, or in the presence of a justice of the 
peace or of an officer appointed by the governor for that purpose, 
who shall sign such form as witness to the signature thereon; and 
such form shall be delivered or forwarded to the returning officer for 
the district, who shall sign the certificate at the foot of such form, and 
shall forthwith transmit such form to the returning officer for the 
Province. 

7. The returning officer for the Province shall, after the expiration 
of two months from the publication of every bill or resolution in the 
Government Gazette, certify to the chief secretary the number of 
requests in Form A received by him. 

8. The governor shall, by proclamation in the Government Gazette, 
appoint a day for the taking of the vote of the electors on any bill or 
resolution to be submitted to the referendum, such day being not less 
than one month after the date of the proclamation. 

9. The voting papers shall be in the Form B or C in the schedule 
hereto, as the case may require, and the voting shall be by ballot; and 
the provisions of the electoral acts relating to the voting for the elec¬ 
tion of members of the house of assembly shall, so far as applicable 
thereto, apply to the voting under this act. 

10. The voting shall take place at all polling places on the day 
appointed by the proclamation, between the hours of eight o’clock in 
the morning and seven o’clock in the evening, and each elector vot¬ 
ing shall signify his vote by making a cross in the square opposite the 
words “ Yes ” or “ No ” on the voting paper; a cross in the square oppo¬ 
site the word “Yes” to signify a vote in favor of the bill or resolution, 


314 DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

and a cross in the square opposite the word “No” to signify a vote 
against the bill or resolution. 

11. Every voting paper which shall have more than one cross upon 
it, or upon which a cross has been made outside either of the squares, 
shall be informal, and shall be rejected. 

12. After the close of the voting the returning officer for each elec¬ 
toral district shall count the votes, and shall make out a certificate of 
the voting in the Form D in the schedule hereto, and shall forthwith 
send the same to the returning officer for the Province, who shall 
from such certificates make up a return of the voting in the Form E 
in the schedule hereto, and forward the same to the chief secretary. 

13. Two resident electors shall be appointed by the attorney-general 
at each chief polling place to be present at and assist the returning 
officer in counting the votes. Such persons may inspect any voting 
paper before being counted, and shall check the result of the voting 
as made up by the returning officer. 

14. If a majority of votes shall be given against a bill or resolution 
it shall not be assented to or acted upon. 

15. No bill which has been assented to shall be deemed invalid by 
reason of its not having been submitted to the referendum, or on 
account of any informality in the carrying out of the referendum. 

16. If petitions, signed by not less than one-tenth of the electors 
entitled to vote for the election of members of the house of assembly, 
and attested by a returning officer, or by a justice of the peace or by 
any other officer appointed for that purpose by the governor, shall be 
presented to Parliament, praying that legislation shall be initiated on 
any subject, the attorney-general shall prepare, or cause to be pre¬ 
pared, a bill to give effect to such petition; and such bill shall be 
introduced into Parliament as a Government measure. 

17. This act shall not apply to any bill or resolution for the con¬ 
struction or maintenance of public works, or of a purely local character 
not affecting the general body of electors, or for ratifying interna¬ 
tional or intercolonial treaties, or relating to Parliamentary procedure 
only, or which the house of assembly declares to be urgent, or any 
private bill. 


Form A. 


The referendum act, 1895. 

I [insert name, address, and occupation] being registered on the roll of electors 
for the electoral district of [here insert name of district], and entitled to vote for 
the election of members of the house of assembly, hereby request that [here 
insert title of bill, short title, if any, being sufficient, or shortly state matter of 
resolution] shall be submitted to the referendum. 

Dated the-day of-, 189—. -. 


Witness: 


[Signature of elector.] 


[Signature of witness.] 

I hereby certify that the above-named-is on the roll of electors for 

the electoral district of-and entitled to vote for the election of members 

for the house of assembly. 


Returning Officer for the Electoral District of —- 











315 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 
Form B. 

The referendum act, 1895—Voting paper. 
That [here set out title of bill] shall become law. 



No... 1^ 

Form C. 

The referendum act , 1895. 

That the resolution passed by [here set out Parliament or legislative council or 
house of assembly and state shortly matter of resolution] shall be carried into 
effect. 



Form D. 

The referendum act , 1895. 

Certificate of voting on [here set out title of bill or shortly set out matter of 
resolution] in the electoral district of-. 

I certify that I have duly counted the votes given in this district on the-day 

of-, 189—, on the above [here set out bill or resolution] being submitted to 

the referendum, and that the result of such voting is as follows, viz: 

Votes given in favor of the [bill or resolution, as the case may be]_ 

Votes given against the [bill or resolution]_ 

Informal votes.. 


Total. .......... 

“ 9 

Returning Officer for the Electoral District of -. 

Form E. 

The referendum act, 1895. 

Return of voting on [here set out title of bill or shortly set out matter of resolu¬ 
tion] submitted to the referendum on the-day of-, 189—. 

I certify that I have made up the voting on the above bill [or resolution] being 
submitted to the referendum from the certificates sent to me by the returning 
officers of each of the electoral districts of the Province, and that the result of such 
voting is as follows: 

Votes given in favor of the [bill or resolution].... 

Votes given against the [bill or resolution]..... .. 

Informal votes........ 


Total votes ...... . ...... 

Returning Officer for the Province of South Australia. 




























316 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


Appendix No. 65. 

REFERENDUM BILL, TASMANIA. 

A BILL to provide for the adoption of the referendum. 

Be it enacted by his excellency the governor of Tasmania , by and 
with the advice and consent of the legislative council and house of 
assembly in Parliament assembled , as follows: 

1. This act shall be called and may be cited as “The referendum 
act, eighteen hundred and ninety-six.” 

2. In addition to the power by the constitution act conferred on the 
governor, by and with the advice and consent of the legislative coun¬ 
cil and house of assembly, to make laws in and for Tasmania, the 
governor shall also have power to make laws in and for Tasmania, by 
and with the advice and consent of the house of assembly and with 
the approval of the people of Tasmania, taken at a general poll or 
referendum pursuant to this act. 

3. Any bill which shall be passed by the house of assembly in two 
consecutive sessions of Parliament, and which shall be rejected by the 
legislative council in each of such two consecutive sessions, may, 
subject to this act, be submitted for the approval of the people of 
Tasmania by means of a general poll of or referendum to the electors 
for the house of assembly. 

4. For the purposes of this act— 

(1) A bill which shall not be passed without substantial alteration 
by the legislative council within two months after the message trans¬ 
mitting the same has been communicated to the legislative council 
from the house of assembly shall be deemed, unless the Parliament 
be sooner prorogued or dissolved, to have been “rejected.” Nothing 
herein contained shall be construed so as to. prevent the legislative 
council from passing any such bill after the expiration of such two 
months; and 

(2) The expression “two consecutive sessions ” means two consecu¬ 
tive sessions, the latter of which commences not less than six weeks 
after the close of the session of Parliament; and 

(3) The questions whether any bill transmitted to the legislative 
council in the second of such consecutive sessions is substantially 
the same bill as that which was rejected in the preceding session, and 
whether a bill has or has not been passed without substantial altera¬ 
tion by the legislative council, shall be finally decided by a resolu¬ 
tion of the house of assembly, and such decision shall be conclusive. 

5. (1) No bill shall be submitted to a general poll or referendum 
unless within twenty-one days after the second rejection thereof by 
the legislative council an address be presented to the governor by 
the house of assembly requesting that the bill be so submitted. 

(2) No such address requesting such submission of any bill shall 
be so presented unless and until a resolution shall have been first 
carried in the house of assembly approving of such address. 

6. (1) Within fourteen days after any such address has been so pre¬ 
sented the governor may proclaim a day for a general poll or refer¬ 
endum, being not less than fourteen days nor more than twenty-one 
days after the date of the publication of such proclamation in the 
Hobart Gazette. 

(2) On such proclaimed day the returning officer of each electoral 
district of the house of assembly shall, without further or other 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


317 


authority than this act, proceed to take a poll at the polling places 
lawfully under any act appointed for such district of all persons who 
would on such day be entitled to vote in the election of any member 
to serve in the house of assembly for such district and who desire to 
vote for or against such bill becoming law. 

7. (1) At the taking of such poll no person shall either in one or 
more districts vote or attempt to vote more than once at any poll 
or polls, and ballot papers in the form of the schedule (1) to this 
act or to the like effect shall be used instead of the ordinary ballot 
papers at house of assembly elections. 

(2) The returning officer or his deputy shall, at the request of any 
person who is entitled to vote thereat, and who, on being asked by the 
returning officer or deputy, answers that he has not already voted at 
such general poll or referendum in the same or any other district and 
desires to vote on the question of such bill becoming law, deliver to 
such person one of such ballot papers. 

(3) Such papers shall be deemed to be ballot papers within the 
meaning of any act for the time being in force for the election of 
members of the house of assembly. 

(4) Any person who at any such general poll or referendum votes 
or attempts to vote more than once shall be guilty of an offense, and 
shall, on conviction thereof, be liable for every such offense to a pen¬ 
alty not exceeding one hundred pounds. 

8. Two scrutineers may be present in every polling booth, one of 
whom may be appointed by the president of the legislative council 
and the other by the speaker of the house of assembly. 

9. Every returning officer, deputy returning officer, scrutineer, and 
poll clerk shall, before he enters upon any of the duties assigned to 
him with regard to any poll, make and sign before some justice of 
the peace a declaration in the form of the schedule (2) to this act or 
to the like effect. 

10. Subject to the foregoing provisions, upon the submitting of any 
bill to a general poll or referendum all proceedings shall be had and 
taken in each electoral district as nearly as may be as upon elections 
for the house of assembly, and the various provisions as to persons, 
places, times, and matters connected with voting contained in the acts 
in force for the time being relating to the elections of members to serve 
in the house of assembly shall, so far as they are not inconsistent with 
this act, apply to polls held hereunder; and all returning officers, 
deputy returning officers, scrutineers, and poll clerks shall and may 
exercise all such powers and authorities and perform all such duties 
in connection with the taking and conduct of such polls at any such 
general poll or referendum as under any act may be exercised by them 
respectively in connection with elections for the house of assembly. 

11. (1) Immediately upon the close of the poll in each electoral 
district the returning officer and every deputy at the polling place at 
which each shall preside shall, in the presence and subject to the 
inspection of the poll clerks and such of the scrutineers as choose to 
be present, open the ballot box aiid proceed to ascertain the number 
of votes recorded, and each deputy shall immediately forward to the 
returning officer a list duly signed and verified, made up under the 
inspection of the scrutineers, of the number of votes recorded for 
and against the bill, respectively, at the booth at which he took the 
poll. 

(2) Every returning officer shall make up from the list so made out 
by him and from such list of his deputies the result of the poll in his 


318 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

district, and publicly post up outside the principal polling place within 
the district a notice of such result, duly signed by him, and shall, as 
soon as conveniently may be on or after the day of the poll, transmit 
by post or otherwise to the clerks of the executive council, legislative 
council, and house of assembly, respectively, a return signed by him, 
showing the number of votes recorded both for and against the bill 
submitted. 

12. (1) The clerk of the executive council shall make up and certify 
to a return of the number of votes recorded in all the electorial dis¬ 
tricts of Tasmania from the returns so transmitted to him by the 
returning officers. 

(2) A notice of the result of the general poll or referendum shall 
in every case be published in the Hobart Gazette by the clerk of the 
executive council, and shall be conclusive evidence of the result of 
such general poll or referendum. 

(3) If the votes recorded against the bill becoming law amount to 
one-half of the total number of votes recorded, then such bill shall be 
deemed to have been “disapproved of,” and shall not become law; 
but if such votes amount to less than one-half of such number, then 
such bill shall be certified to as hereinbefore provided, and the clerk 
of the legislative council shall then, in the same manner as if the 
said bill had been passed by both houses of Parliament, present the 
same to the governor for the royal assent; and after such assent has 
been given, such act shall be an act of the Parliament of Tasmania 
within the meaning of the constitution act. 

13. In every bill passed by the house of assembly, and approved 
at a general poll or referendum, the enacting authority shall, before 
the same is presented to the governor for the royal assent, be stated 
thereon in the following form, namely: 

Be it enacted by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the house 
of assembly of Tasmania in Parliament assembled, and with the sanction of the 
people of Tasmania and by the authority of the same, as follows, that is to say. 

14. No poll shall be liable to be questioned by reason only of the 
defect in or any want of title of the person by or before whom any 
polling for the same shall have been held if such person have been 
actually appointed to preside or have been acting in the office giving 
the right to preside at such polling, or to be questioned by reason of 
any defect in the appointment of any polling place. 

15. (1) No general poll or referendum or any poll in any electoral 
district shall be void in consequence only of there having been no 
clerk of the executive council or no returning officer at the time of 
the publication of the proclamation to take a general poll, or of any 
delay in forwarding a return thereof to the clerks as aforesaid, or of 
any error in making up or certifying to any return of the numbers of 
votes recorded, or in publishing a notice of the result thereof. 

(2) Where any accidental or unavoidable impediment, misfeasance, 
or omission shall have happened in any matters whatsoever under 
this act, the governor in council may take all such measures as may 
be necessary for removing such impediment or rectifying such mis¬ 
feasance or omission, or may declare any or all of the proceedings at 
or for any poll in any district valid as to and notwithstanding any 
such impediment, misfeasance, or omission; and every order made 
by the governor in council shall state specifically the nature of the 
impediment, misfeasance, or omission, and shall be forthwith pub¬ 
lished in the Hobart Gazette. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


319 


16. So far as they are not inconsistent herewith, the penal provisions 
of all acts in force for the time being relating to elections for the 
house of assembly shall be deemed to be incorporated with and be 
part of this act, and the like matters to those mentioned in such 
provisions shall, when committed in relation to polls under this act, 
be deemed to be offenses to be tried in the like jurisdictions with the 
like procedure limited to the like times and to be subject to the like 
penalties as may now or from time to time hereafter be imposed by 
such provisions. 

SCHEDULE. 

(1) Ballot paper at general poll or referendum. 


Short title of bill___ _ _ 

QTUo 11 tbic Tvill no oo 9 

Yes. 

oHctii tins Din pass: 

No. 


Directions .—This paper is to be dropped into the ballot box by the voter. The 
voter is not permitted to take this paper out of the polling booth. The voter is to 
strike out either yes or no—the opposite answer to the way in which he wishes 
to vote, and to leave standing the answer such voter wishes to give. 

(2) Declaration. 

1 [A. B.] [returning officer, deputy returning officer, scrutineer, or poll clerk, 
as the case may be] do solemnly declare that I will faithfully observe all the pro¬ 
visions of all acts of the Parliament of Tasmania which relate to my office of 

-. And I further solemnly promise and declare that I will not attempt 

to ascertain, save m cases in which I may be expressly authorized by law so to do, 
how any person shall vote at any poll; and that if in the discharge of my said 
duties I shall have learned or have the means of learning how any person shall 
vote or have voted at any poll, I will not by word or act or any other means what¬ 
soever directly or indirectly divulge or discover or aid in divulging or discovering 
the same, save in answer to some question which I am legally bound to answer or 
in compliance with the express provisions of the law relating to Parliamentary 
elections. 


Appendix No. 66. 

REFERENDUM BILL, VICTORIA. 

[Brought in by Mr. Outtrim, Mr. Higgins, and Mr. Maloney.] 

A BILL to provide for the adoption of the referendum. 

Be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty , by and with the 
advice and consent of the legislative council and the legislative assembly 
of Victoria in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority 
of the same , as follows, that is to say: 

1. This act shall be called and may be cited as the referendum act, 
eighteen hundred and ninety-seven. 

2. (1) In addition to the power by section two of the constitution 
act conferred on Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of 
the legislative coimcil and legislative assembly, to make laws in and 
for Victoria, Her Majesty shall also have power to make laws in and 
for Victoria, by and with the advice and consent of the legislative 

S. Doc. i£6-53 














320 


DIRECT* LEGISLATION, ETC. 


assembly and with the approval of the people of Victoria taken at a 
general poll or referendum pursuant to this act. 

(2) No law shall be so made for appropriating any part of the 
revenue of Victoria or for imposing any duty, rate, tax, rent, return, 
or impost. 

3. Any bill (other than a bill to which the fifty-sixth section of 
the constitution act relates) which shall be passed by the legislative 
assembly in two consecutive sessions of Parliament, and which shall 
be rejected by the legislative council in each of such two consecutive 
sessions may, subject to this act, be submitted for the approval of the 
people of Victoria by means of a general poll of or referendum to the 
electors for the legislative assembly. 

4. For the purposes of this act— 

(a) A bill which shall not be passed without substantial alteration 
by the legislative council within two months after the message trans¬ 
mitting the same has been communicated to the legislative council 
from the legislative assembly shall be deemed, unless the Parliament 
be sooner prorogued or dissolved, to have been “rejected.” Nothing 
herein contained shall be construed so as to prevent the legislative 
council from passing any such bill after the expiration of such two 
months; and 

( b ) The expression “two consecutive sessions” means two consecu¬ 
tive sessions, the latter of which commences not less than six weeks 
after the close of the preceding session of Parliament; and 

(c) The questions whether any bill transmitted to the legislative 
council in the second of such consecutive sessions is substantially the 
same bill as that which was rejected in the preceding session, and 
whether a bill has or has not been passed without substantial altera¬ 
tion by the legislative council, shall be finally decided by a resolution 
of the legislative assembly, and such decision shall be conclusive. 

5. (1) No bill shall be submitted to a general poll or referendum 
unless, within twenty-one days after the second rejection thereof by 
the legislative council, an address be presented to the governor by the 
legislative assembly requesting that the bill be so submitted. 

(2) No such address requesting such submission of any bill shall 
be so presented unless and until a resolution shall have been first 
carried in the legislative assembly approving of such address. 

6. (1) Within fourteen days after any such address has been so 
presented the governor may proclaim a day for a general poll or 
referendum, being not less than fourteen days nor more than twenty- 
one days after the date of the publication of such proclamation in the 
Government Gazette. 

(2) On such proclaimed day the returning officer of each electoral 
district of the legislative assembly shall, without further or other 
authority than this act, proceed to take a poll at the polling places 
lawfully under any act appointed for such district of all persons who 
would on such day be entitled to vote in the election of any member 
to serve in the legislative assembly for such district and who desire 
to vote for or against such bill becoming law. 

7. (1) At the taking of such poll no person shall either in one or 
more districts vote or attempt to vote more than once at any poll or 
polls, and ballot papers in the form of the first schedule of this act 
or to the like effect shall be used instead of the ordinary ballot papers 
at legislative assembly elections. 

(2) The returning officer or his deputy shall, at the request of any 
person who is entitled to vote thereat, and who, on being asked by the 


321 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 

returning officer or deputy, answers that he has not already voted at 
such general poll or referendum in the same or any other district and 
desires to vote on the question of such hill becoming law, deliver to 
such person one of such ballot papers. 

(3) Such papers shall be deemed to be ballot papers within the mean¬ 
ing of ^ny act for the time being in force for the election of members 
of the legislative assembly. 

(4) Any person who at any such general poll or referendum votes 
or attempts to vote more than once shall be guilty of an offense, and 
shall, on conviction thereof, be liable for every such offense to a penalty 
not exceeding one hundred pounds. 

8. Two scrutineers may be present in every polling booth, one of 
whom may be appointed by the president of the legislative council 
and the other by the speaker of the legislative assembty. 

9. Every returning officer substitute, returning officer deputy, return¬ 
ing officer scrutineer, and poll clerk shall, before he enters upon any 
of the duties assigned to him with regard to any poll, make and sign 
before some justice a declaration in the form of the second schedule 
to this act or to the like effect. 

10. Subject to the foregoing provisions, upon the submitting of any 
bill to a general poll or referendum all proceedings shall be had and 
taken in each electoral district as nearly as may be as upon elections 
for the legislative assembly, and the various provisions as to persons, 
places, times, and matters connected with voting contained in the acts 
in force for the time being, relating to the elections of members to 
serve in the legislative assembly, shall, so far as they are not incon¬ 
sistent with this act, apply to polls held hereunder; and all returning 
officers, substitute returning officers, deputy returning officers, scruti¬ 
neers, and poll clerks shall and may exercise all such powers and 
authorities and perform all such duties in connection with the taking 
and conduct of such polls at any such general poll or referendum as 
under any act may be exercised by them respectively in connection 
with elections for the legislative assembly. 

11. (1) Immediately upon the close of the poll in each electoral dis¬ 
trict the returning officer and every deputy at the polling place at 
which each shall preside shall, in the presence and subject to the 
inspection of the poll clerks and such of the scrutineers as choose to 
be present, open the ballot box and proceed to ascertain the number 
of votes recorded, and each deputy shall immediately forward to the 
returning officer a list duly signed and verified, made up under the 
inspection of the scrutineers, of the number of votes recorded for and 
against the bill, respectively, at the booth at which he took the poll. 

(2) Every returning officer shall make up from the list so made 
out by him and from such lists of his deputies the result of the poll in 
his district and publicly post up outside the principal polling place 
within the district a notice of such result duly signed by him, and 
shall, as soon as conveniently may be on or after the day of the poll, 
transmit, by post or otherwise, to the clerks of the executive council, 
legislative council, and legislative assembly, respectively, a return 
signed by him showing the number of votes recorded both for and 
against the bill submitted. 

12. (1) The clerk of the executive council shall make up and certify 
to a return of the number of votes recorded in all the electoral dis¬ 
tricts of Victoria from the returns so transmitted to him by the 
returning officers. 

(2) A notice of the result of the general poll or referendum shall in 
S. Doc. 340-21 



322 


DIRECT LEGISLATION, ETC. 


eveiy case be published in the Government Gazette, and shall be con¬ 
clusive evidence of the result of such general poll. 

(3) If the votes recorded against the bill becoming law amount to 
one-half of the total number of votes recorded, then such bill shall be 
deemed to have been “disapproved of,” and shall not become law; but 
if such votes amount to less than one-half of such number, then such 
bill shall be certified to as hereinbefore provided, and the clerk of the 
Parliament shall then, in the same manner as if the said bill had 
been passed by both houses of Parliament, present the same to the 
governor for Her Majesty’s assent; and after such assent has been 
given, such act shall be an act of the legislature of Victoria within 
the meaning of the constitution act. 

13. In every bill passed by the legislative assembly and approved 
at a general poll or referendum the enacting authority shall, before 
the same is presented to the governor for Her Majesty’s assent, be 
stated thereon in the following form, namely: 

Be it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice 
and consent of the legislative assembly of Victoria and with the sanction of the 
people of Victoria and by the authority of the same, as follows, that is to say. 

14. No poll shall be liable to be questioned by reason only of the 
defect in or any want of title of the person by or before whom any 
polling for the same shall have been held if such person have been 
actually appointed to preside or have been acting in the office giving 
the right to preside at such polling, or to be questioned by reason of 
any defect in the appointment of any polling place. 

15. (1) No general poll or referendum or any poll in any electoral 
district shall be void in consequence only of there having been no 
clerk of the executive council or no returning officer at the time of the 
publication of the proclamation to take a general poll, or of any delay 
in forwarding a return thereof to the clerks as aforesaid, or of any 
error in making up or certifying to any return of the numbers of votes 
recorded, or in publishing a notice of the result thereof. 

(2) Where any accidental or unavoidable impediment, misfeasance, 
or omission shall have happened in any matters whatsoever under 
this act, the governor in council may take all such measures as may 
be necessary for removing such impediment or rectifying such mis¬ 
feasance or omission, or may declare any or all of the proceedings at 
or for any poll in any district valid as to and notwithstanding any 
such impediment, misfeasance, or omission; and every such order in 
council shall state specifically the nature of the impediment, misfeas¬ 
ance, or omission, and shall be forthwith published in the Govern¬ 
ment Gazette. 

16. So far as they are not inconsistent herewith, the penal provisions 
of all acts in force for the time being relating to elections for the leg¬ 
islative assembly shall be deemed to be incorporated with and be part 
of this act, and the like matters to those mentioned in such provisions 
shall, when committed in relation to polls under this act, be deemed 
to be offenses to be tried in the like jurisdictions with the like pro¬ 
cedure limited to the like times and to be subject to the like penalties 
as may now or from time to time hereafter be imposed by such pro¬ 
visions. 


DIRECT LEGISLATION ETC. 


323 


FIRST SCHEDULE. 

Ballot paper at general poll or referendum. 


Short title of bill 


Shall this bill pass? 


Yes. 


No. 


Directions .—This paper is to be dropped into the ballot box by the voter. The 
voter is not permitted to take this paper out of the polling booth. The voter is to 
strike out either yes or no, the opposite answer to the way in which he wishes to 
vote, and to leave standing the answer such voter wishes to give. 

SECOND SCHEDULE. 

Declaration. 

I [A. B. ] [returning officer, substitute returning officer, deputy returning officer, 
scrutineer, or poll clerk, as the case may be] do solemnly declare that I will faith¬ 
fully observe all the provisions of all acts of the Parliament of Victoria which 

relate to such my office of-. And I further solemnly promise and declare 

that I will not attempt to ascertain, save in cases in which I may be expressly 
authorized by law so to do, how any person shall vote at any poll; and that if in 
the discharge of my said duties I shall have learned or have the means of learning 
how any person shall vote or have voted at any poll, I will not by word or act or 
any other means whatsoever, directly or indirectly, divulge or discover or aid in 
divulging or discovering the same, save in answer to some question which I am 
legally bound to answer or in compliance with the express provisions of the law 
relating to parliamentary elections. 

















INDEX TO APPENDIXES. 


From Nos. 1 through 23 are mainly arguments. 

From Nos. 24 through 54 are mainly historical statements. 

From Nos. 54 through 67 are mainly laws or amendments, or proposed laws or 
amendments. 

Of course, these divisions are not exact, and part of the arguments are his¬ 
torical, aud the historical often verges on the argumentative. 

ARGUMENTS. 

No. Page. 

1 6 The legal aspects of direct legislation, by Hon. John O. Yeiser, of Omaha 

Nebr. Written for this report. 

2 9 Suggestions on government, by S. E. Moffett, formerly editor of the San 

Francisco Examiner, now of the New York Journal. Extracts from 
the book of that name, selected by its author for this report. 

3 — An English view of the referendum, by Prof. W. E. H. Lecky. Extract 

from his book. Democracy and Liberty. (Omitted in printing.) 

4 — A second English view of the referendum, by Prof. James Bryce. 

Extract from his book, The American Commonwealth. (Omitted in 
printing.) 

5 17 Speech of Hon. G. H. Reid, premier of New South Wales. 

6 25 Speech of Hon. E. L. Batcheler, member of South Australian Parliament. 

7 30 Direct legislation versus representative government, by Hon. Charles 

Burkly, of Zurich, Switzerland. 

8 38 The New Time symposiums and articles by Eltweed Pomeroy, from July, 

1897, to April, 1898. 

9 87 Extract from book by Martin Rittenhausen, of Switzerland, on direct 

legislation. 

10 89 The forces behind direct legislation, from the Direct Legislation Record, 

March, 1895. 

11 90 Address of J. W. Arrowsmith before senate of New Jersey, from the 

Direct Legislation Record, March, 1895. 

12 93 A colossal but crude and awkward referendum, by Eltweed Pomeroy, 

from the Direct Legislation Record, December, 1896. 

13 101 The initiative and referendum, by Hon. Marion Butler, from the Home 

Magazine, October, 1897. 

14 105 An educational force, by Moses Oppenheimer, from the Coming Nation, 

January 4, 1896. 

15 106 A parliament for man, by Hon. Thomas McEwan, jr., M. C., from the 

Coming Nation, January 4, 1896. 

16 108 The cause of the evil and its remedy, from circular issued by the Initia¬ 

tive and Referendum League of South Dakota. 

17 109 The breakdown of legislatures; editorial from Harper’s Weekly. 

18 110 Impressions of legislative work from the inside by three legislators, 

from the Direct Legislation Record, June, 1897. 

19 114 Parliament is over, from the London (England) Clarion. 


325 



326 


INDEX TO APPENDIXES. 


No. Page. 

20 115 A contrast, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the Direct Legislation Record, 

September, 1895. 

21 120 The doorway of reforms, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the Arena, April, 

1897. 

22 129 Suggestions and objections to direct legislation, by Hon. W. S. U’Ren, 

prepared for this report. 

23 143 Objections to direct legislation answered by Prof. Frank Parsons, by 

permission, from manuscript of book soon to be issued. 


24 152 

25 159 

26 166 
27 181 

/ 28 185 

29 186 

30 187 

31 192 

32 196 

33 198 

34 203 

35 220 

36 221 

37 225 

38 227 

39 229 

40 238 

41 246 

42 250 

43 254 

44 255 


HISTORICAL. 

Foreshadowings of direct legislation, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the 
American Nonconformist, June 3,1897. 

The direct-legislation movements and its leaders, by Eltweed Pomeroy, 
from the Arena, June, 1896. 

The referendum in use (constitution amending), by various parties, 
from the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1897. 

Direct legislation in Iowa, by John M. Work, from the Direct Legislation 
Record. April, 1898. 

A review of Michigan referendums, by Hon. A. M. Todd, M. C., from 
the Direct Legislation Record, June, 1897. 

Direct legislation in the South, by Miss Frances E. Willard, from the 
Voice (New York). 

The problem of the cities, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the American Fed- 
erationist. 

Direct legislation in New England, by Dr. Lewis G. Janes, from the New 
England Magazine. 

A Duluth and a Swiss municipal referendum, from Direct Legislation 
Record, December, 1895. 

General outline of direct legislation in Switzerland, condensed for this 
report by George H. Strobel, from J. W. Sullivan’s book on direct 
legislation. 

Direct legislation in Switzerland, by J. W. Sullivan, from the Direct Leg¬ 
islation Record, September, 1894. 

National votings in Switzerland, from the Journal de Geneve, of Switz¬ 
erland. 

Swiss federal votes, by J. W. Sullivan, from the Direct Legislation 
Record, September, 1894. 

The Swiss stand against centralization, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the 
Direct Legislation Record, March, 1896. 

The railway question in Switzerland, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the 
Direct Legislation Record, September, 1897. 

The Swiss referendum on a national bank, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from 
the Direct Legislation Record, September, 1897. 

Direct legislation defended, by Eltweed Pomeroy, from the American 
Federationist, July and August, 1896. 

How it works, by J. W. Sullivan, from the Coming Nation, January 4, 
1896. 

Genuine democracy in Switzerland, by Prof. Louis Waurin (Universite 
de Geneve), from the Progressive Review, July, 1897. 

Considerations on Swiss popular votings, by Philip Jamin, of Geneva, 
from Kosmos, February, 1898. 

Some opinions on direct legislation, from the Direct Legislation Record, 
September, 1894. 


INDEX TO APPENDIXES. 


327 


No. Page. 

45 256 

46 257 

47 257 

48 260 

49 263 

50 264 

51 267 

52 271 

53 274 


A testimony fronftSwitzerland, by M. Numa Droz, ex-President of Swit¬ 
zerland, from thjb Contemporary Review, March, 1895. 

A well-seasoned Swiss opinion, by Herr Kappeler, of Thurgau, from an 
official report made in 1874. 

Direct legislation,.in France, by M. Edward Valliant, member French 
Chamber of Deputies, from the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1898. 

The referendum in England, by J. St. Loe Strachey, editor of the Lon¬ 
don Spectator, from Cosmopolis, April, 1897. 

New Zealand, by Hon. P. J. O’Regan, member of New Zealand Parlia¬ 
ment, from the Direct Legislation Record, June, 1896. 

The referendum in Australia and New Zealand, by Lilian Toms, from 
the Contemporary Review, August, 1897. 

The referendum in Australia, by Frank G. Tudor, from the Direct Leg¬ 
islation Record, December, 1897. ^ 

Report of royal commission in Victoria in 1894. 

The Majority Rule League of the United States, by Frederick Upham 
Adams. Published by Charles F. Kerr & Co., of Chicago. 


PROPOSED AND ENACTED LAWS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. 

54 283 Suggested amendments to United States Constitution, prepared for this 

report. 

55 293 United States Senate referendum bill, by Hon. R. F. Pettigrew. 

56 294 The proposed Oregon and New Jersey amendments, from the Direct 

Legislation Record, December, 1896. 

57 296 The National Direct Legislation League’s State constitutional amend¬ 

ment, from the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1898. 

58 297 State constitutional amendment, from the Direct Legislation Record, 

September,. 1897. I * 

59 298 The National Direct Legislation League’s municipal direct-legislation 

law, from the Direct Legislation Record, March, 1898. 

60 302 The direct-legislation laws of Switzerland, from United States Consular 

Reports, Volume XLVI, No. 170. 

61 305 The municipal referendum law of Geneva, Switzerland, from the Direct 

Legislation Record, December, 1896. 

62 306 New South Wales referendum bill of 1896. 

63 311 New Zealand referendum bill of 1895. 

64 312 South Australia referendum bill of 1895. 

65 316 Tasmania referendum bill of 1896. 

66 319 Victoria referendum bill of 1897. 


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